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The Water Ghost
and Others

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

AUTHOR OF "COFFEE AND REPARTEE

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

1894

By JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.

COFFEE AND REPARTEE.
THREE WEEKS IN POLITICS.

Illustrated. i2mo, Clothy Ornanunial^ 50 cents each.

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS. Nbw York.

igp" For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the
publishers, postage prepaid, to any part 0/ the United
States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt 0/ price.

' \

,-/// rights reserved.

V.4

€

FRANCIS SEDGWICK BANGS

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE WATER GHOST OF HARROWBY

HALL I

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP . 20

THE SPECK ON THE LENS .... 104

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 121

A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA . . . . 1 65

THE GHOST CLUB 1 74

A PSYCHICAL PRANK 233

THE LITERARY REMAINS OF THOMAS

BRAGDON 247

l^aiiK

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

*** WELCOME TO BANGLETOP*" . . . Frontispiece

A DEPARTING COOK 2$

THE baron's breakfast WAS NOT . . . 3I

PAY-DAY 37

TERWILLIGER TO THE RESCUE 5 1

"cook!" HE WHISPERED 55

THE PRESENCE HAD ASSUMED SHAPE ... 59

"'NO TAIKERS,' RETORTED THE GHOST** . 63

THEY SHOOK HANDS AND PARTED .... 73

THE h'earl of MUGLEY . 79

'•* TO ARIADNE, OF course'" 87

"A DUKE IS A DUKE THE WORLD OVER** . 95

BACK TO THE SPIRIT VALE lOI

"MARTYRS* night'* 123

"DO YOU HEAR THAT BOLT SLIDE?" . . . I3I

THE VISITOR ARRIVES 135

"I LOOKED UPON MY REFLECTION IN THE

GLASS*' 141

THE RED TIE 145

"not a CARD fell" 149

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

•'•grab hold of me, bqys'" 153

••l MUST HAVE fainted" I57

THE MIND -READING FEATS ON THE CLUB's

BUTLER 161

"5010" 175

••pegging shoes LIKE A GENTLEMAN" . . I7g

5010 BECOMES EXCITED 1 85

••no less a person THAN HAWLEY HICKS " I9I

•••just WATCH ME*" ig7

noah and davy crockett 20i

solomon and doctor johnson .... 205

mozart tries his hand at the banjo . 209

waiting for the critics 2i3

napoleon bonaparte and the duke of

wellington 217

the gift of the spoons 221

••'let me shaak dthot hand'". . . . 229

••he was IN AN UNUSUALLY EXUBERANT

mood" 249

on a spirit ship 253

••more BEAUTIFUL THAN THE REALITY" . 257

GIUSEPPE ZOCCO 263

••but Fy^ALLY I OPENED THE BOX " . . . 27I
'•gazing into the FIRE WAS TOM BRAG-
DON " . 281

•**YOU GOIN' to keep a DIARY?'" ... 293

THE WATER GHOST OF HAR-
ROWBY HALL

The trouble with Harrowby Hall was
that it was haunted, and, what was worse,
the ghost did not content itself with merely
appearing at the bedside of the afflicted
person who saw it, but persisted in remain-
ing there for one mortal hour before it
would disappear.

It never appeared except on Christmas
Eve, and then as the clock was striking
twelve, in which respect alone was it lack-
ing in that originality which in these days
is a sine qua non of success in spectral life.
The owners of Harrowby Hall had done
their utmost to rid themselves of the damp
and dewy lady who rose up out of the
best bedroom floor at midnight, but with-
out avail. They had tried stopping the
clock, so that the ghost would not know

2 THE WATER GHOST

when it was midnight; but she made her
, appearance just the same, with that fearful
miasmatic personality of hers, and there
she would stand until everything about her
was thoroughly saturated.

Then the owners of Harrowby Hall
calked up every crack in the floor with the
very best quality of hemp, and over this
was placed layers of tar and canvas ; the
walls were made water-proof, and the doors
and windows likewise, the proprietors hav-
ing conceived the notion that the unexor-
cised lady would find it difficult to leak
into the room after these precautions had
been taken ; but even this did not suffice.
The following Christmas Eve she appeared
as promptly as before, and frightened the oc-
cupant of the room quite out of his senses
by sitting down alongside of him and gazing
with her cavernous blue eyes into his ; and
he noticed, too, that in her long, aqueously
bony fingers bits of dripping sea-weed were
entwined, the ends hanging down, and these
ends she drew across his forehead until
he became like one insane. And then he
swooned away, and was found unconscious |

THE WATER GHOST 3

in his bed the next morning by his host,
simply saturated with sea-water and fright,
from the combined effects of which he
never recovered, dying four years later of
pneumonia and nervous prostration at the
age of seventy-eight.

The next year the master of Harrowby
Hall decided not to have the best spare
bedroom opened at all, thinking that per-
haps the ghost's thirst for making herself
disagreeable would be satisfied by haunting
the furniture, but the plan was as unavail-
ing as the many that had preceded it.

The ghost appeared as usual in the room
— that is, it was supposed she did, for
the hangings were dripping wet the next
morning, and in the parlor below the haunt-
ed room a gfeat damp spot appeared on
the ceiling. Finding no one there, she
immediately set out to learn the reason
why, and she chose none other to haunt
than the owner of the Harrowby himself.
She found him in his own cosey room drink-
ing whiskey — whiskey undiluted — and fe-
licitating himself upon having foiled her
ghostship, when all of a sudden the aurl

4 THE WATER GHOST

went out of his hair, his whiskey bottle
filled and overflowed, and he was himself
in a condition similar to that of a man who
has fallen into a water-butt. When he re-
covered from the shock, which was a pain-
ful one, he saw before him the lady of the
cavernous eyes and sea- weed fingers. The
sight was so unexpected and so terrifying
that he fainted, but immediately came to,
because of the vast amount of water in his
hair, which, trickling down over his face,
restored his consciousness.

Now it so happened that the master of
Harrowby was a brave man, and while he
was not particularly fond of interviewing
ghosts, especially such quenching ghosts
as the one before him, he was not to be
daunted by an apparition. He had paid
the lady the compliment of fainting from
the effects of his first surprise, and now
that he had come to he intended to find
out a few things he felt he had a right to
know. He would have liked to put on a
dry suit of clothes first, but the apparition
declined to leave him for an instant until
her hour was up, and he was forced to deny

THE WATER GHOST 5

himself that pleasure. Every time he would
move she would follow him, with the result
that everything she came in contact with
got a ducking. In an effort to warm himself
up he approached the fire, an unfortunate
move as it turned out, because it brought
the ghost directly over the fire, which im-
mediately was extinguished. The whis-
key became utterly valueless as a comforter
to his chilled system, because it was by this
time diluted to a proportion of ninety per
cent, of water. The only thing he could do
to ward off the evil effects of his encounter
he did, and that was to swallow ten two-
grain quinine pills, which he managed to
put into his mouth before the ghost had
time, to interfere. Having done this, he
turned with some asperity to the ghost, and'
said:

"Far be it from me to be impolite to
a woman, madam, but Tm hanged if it
wouldn't please me better if you'd stop
these infernal visits of yours to this house.
Go sit out on the lake, if you like that sort
of thing ; soak the water-butt, if you wish ;
but do not, I implore you, come into a gen-

6 THE WATER GHOST

tleman's house and saturate him and his
possessions in this way. It is damned dis-
agreeable."

" Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe," said the
ghost, in a gurgling voice, " you don't know
what you are talking about."

" Madam," returned the unhappy house-
holder, "I wish that remark were strictly
truthful. I was talking about you. It
would be shillings and pence — nay, pounds,
in my pocket, madam, if I did not know
you."

" That is a bit of specious nonsense," re-
turned the ghost, throwing a quart of indig-
nation into the face of the master of Har-
rowby. " It may rank high as repartee,
but as a comment upon my statement that
you do not know what you are talking
about, it savors of irrelevant impertinence.
You do not know that I am compelled to
haunt this place year after year by inexor-
able fate. It is no pleasure to me to enter
this house, and ruin and mildew everything
I touch. I never aspired to be a shower-
bath, but it is my doom. Do you know
who I am ?"

THE WATER GHOST 7

"No, I don't," returned the master of
Harrowby. " I should say you were the
Lady of the Lake, or Little Sallie Waters."

"You g,re a witty man for your years,"
said the ghost.

"Well, my humor is drier than yours
ever will bp," returned the master.

"No doubt. I'm never dry. I am the
Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall, and dry-
ness is a quality entirely beyond my wildest
hope. I have been the incumbent of this
highly unpleasant office for two hundred
years to-night."

" How the deuce did you ever come to
get elected ?" asked the master.

" Through a suicide," replied the spectre.
"I am the ghost of that fair maiden whose
picture hangs over the mantel-piece in the \

drawing-room. I should have been your
great-great-great-great-great-aunt if I had
lived, Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe, for I
was the own sister of your great-great-great-
great -grandfather."

" But what induced you to get this house
into such a predicament i^"

" I was not to blame, sir," returned the

8 THE WATER GHOST

lady. "It was my father's fault. He it
' was who built Harrowby Hall, and the
haunted chamber was to have been mine.
My father had it furnished in pinjc and yel-
low, knowing well that blue and gray formed
the only combination of color I could tol-
erate. He did it merely to spite me, and,
with what I deem a proper spirit, I declined
to live in the room ; whereupon my father
said I could live there or on the lawn, he
didn't care which. That night I ran from
the house and jumped over the cliff into
the sea."

" That was rash," said the master of Har-
rowby.

"So Tve heard," returned the ghost. "If
I had known what the consequences were
to be I should not have jumped; but I
really never realized what I was doing
until after I was drowned. I had been
drowned a week when a sea-nymph came to
me and informed me that I was to be one
of her followers forever afterwards, adding
that it should be my doom to haunt Har-
rowby Hall for one hour every Christmas
Eve throughout the rest of eternity. I was

THE WATER GHOST 9

to haunt that room on such Christmas
Eves as I found it inhabited; and if it
should turn out not to be inhabited, I was
and am to spend the allotted hour with the
head of the house."

" ril sell the place."

"That you cannot do, for it is also re-
quired of me that I shall appear as the
deeds are to be delivered to any purchaser,
and divulge to him the awful secret of the
house."

"Do you mean to tell me that on every
Christmas Eve that I don't happen to have
somebody in that guest - chamber, you are
going to haunt me wherever I may be, ruin-
ing my whiskey, taking all the curl out of my
hair, extinguishing my fire, and soaking me
through to the skin ?" demanded the master.

"You have stated the case, Oglethorpe.
And what is more," said the water ghost,
"it doesn't make the slightest difference
where you are, if I find that room empty,
wherever you may be I shall douse you with
my spectral pres — "

Here the clock struck one, and immedi-
ately the apparition faded away. It was

10 THE WATER GHOST

perhaps more of a trickle than a fade, but
as a disappearance it was complete.

" By St. George and his Dragon !" ejacu-
lated the master of Harrowby, wringing his
hands. " It is guineas to hot-cross buns
that next Christmas there's an occupant of
the spare room, or I spend the night in a
bath-tub."

But the master of Harrowby would have
lost his wager had there been any one there
to take him up, for when Christmas Eve
came again he was in his grave, never
having recovered from the cold contracted
that awful night. Harrowby Hall was closed,
and the heir to the estate was in London,
where to him in his chambers came the
same experience that his father had gone
through, saving only that, being younger
and stronger, he survived the shock. Ev-
erything in his rooms was ruined — his
clocks were rusted in the works ; a fine col-
lection of water-color drawings was entire-
ly obliterated by the onslaught of the water
ghost ; and what was worse, the apartments
below his were drenched with the water
soaking through the floors, a damage for

THE WATER GHOST II

which he was compelled to pzy, and which
resulted in his being requested by his land-
lady to vacate the premises immediately.

The story of the visitation inflicted upon
his family had gone abroad, and no one
could be got to invite him out to any func-
tion save afternoon teas and receptions. Fa-
thers of daughters declined to permit him
to remain in their houses later than eight
o'clock at night, not knowing but that some
emergency might arise in the supernatural
world which would require the unexpected
appearance of the water ghost in this on
nights other than Christmas Eve, and be-
fore the mystic hour when weary church-
yards, ignoring the rules which are sup-
posed to govern polite society, begin to
yawn. Nor would the maids themselves
have aught to do with him, fearing the de-
struction by the sudden incursion of aque-
ous femininity of the costumes which they
held most dear.

So the heir of Harrowby Hall resolved,
as his ancestors for several generations be-
fore him had resolved, that something must
be done. His first thought was to make

{

12 THE WATER GHOST

one of his servants occupy the haunted
room at the crucial moment ; but in this
he failed, because the servants themselves
knew the history of that room and rebelled.
None of his friends would consent to sacri-
fice their personal comfort to his, nor was
there to be found in all England a man so
poor as to be willing to occupy the doomed
chamber on Christmas Eve for pay.

Then the thought came to the heir to
have the fireplace in the room enlarged, so
that he might evaporate the ghost at its
first appearance, and he was felicitating
himself upon the ingenuity of his plan, when
he remembered what his father had told
him — how that no fire could withstand the
lady's extremely contagious dampness. And
then he bethought him of steam - pipes.
These, he remembered, could lie hundreds
of feet deep in water, and still retain suffi-
cient heat to drive the water away in vapor ;
and as a result of this thought the haunted
room was heated by steam to a wither-
ing degree, and the heir for six months at-
tended daily the Turkish baths, so that
when Christmas Eve came he could himself

THE WATER GHOST 1 3

withstand the awful temperature of the
room.

The scheme was only partially success-
ful. The water ghost appeared at the speci-
fied time, and found the heir of Harrow-
by prepared ; but hot as the room was, it
shortened her visit by no more than five
minutes in the hour, during which time the
nervous system of the young master was
wellnigh shattered, and the room itself was
cracked and warped to an extent which re-
quired the outlay of a large sum of money
to remedy. And worse than this, as the
last drop of the water ghost was slowly
sizzling itself out on the floor, she whis-
pered to her would-be conqueror that his
scheme would avail him nothing, because
there was still water in great plenty where
she came from, and that next year would
find her rehabilitated and as exasperatingly
saturating as ever.

It was then that the natural action of the
mind, in going from one extreme to the
other, suggested to the ingenious heir of
Harrowby the means by which the water
ghost was ultimately conquered, and happi-

14 THE WATER GHOST

ness once more came within the grasp of
the house of Oglethorpe.

The heir provided himself with a warm
suit of fur under-clothing. Donning this
with the furry side in, he placed over it
a rubber garment, tightfitting, which he
wore just as a woman wears a jersey. On
top of this he placed another set of un-
der-clothing, this suit made of wool, and
over this was a second rubber garment
like the first. Upon his head he placed
a light and comfortable diving helmet,
and so clad, on the following Christmas
Eve he awaited the coming of his tor-
mentor.

It was a bitterly cold night that brought
to a close this twenty- fourth day of Decem-
ber. The air outside was still, but the tem-
perature was below zero. Within all was
quiet, the servants of Harrowby Hall await-
ing with beating hearts the outcome of their
master's campaign against his supernatural
visitor.

The master himself was lying on the bed
in the haunted room, clad as has already
been indicated, and then —

THE WATER GHOST 15

The clock clanged out the hour of
twelve.

There was a sudden banging of doors, a
blast of cold air swept through the halls,
the door leading into the haunted chamber
flew open, a splash was heard, and the water
ghost was seen standing at the side of the
heir of Harrowby, from whose outer dress
there streamed rivulets of water, but whose
own person deep down under the various
garments he wore was as dry and as warm
as he could have wished.

" Ha !" said the young master of Harrow-
by. "I'm glad to see you.'*

" You are the most original man I*ve met,
if that is true," returned the ghost. " May
I ask where did you get that hat ?"

" Certainly, madam," returned the mas-
ter, courteously. " It is a little portable ob-
servatory I had made for just such emergen-
cies as this. But, tell me, is it true that
you are doomed to follow me about for one
mortal hour — to stand where I stand, to sit
where I sit ?"

"That is rny delectable fate," returned
the lady.

1 6 THE WATER GHOST

" We'll go out on the lake," said the mas-
ter, starting up.

"You can't get rid of me that way," re-
turned the ghost. " The water won't swal-
low me up ; in fact, it will just add to my
present bulk."

"Nevertheless," said the master, firmly,
" we will go out on the lake."

" But, my dear sir," returned the ghost,
with a pale reluctance, " it is fearfully cold
out there. You will be frozen hard before
youVe been out ten minutes."

"Oh no, I'll not," replied the master. " I
am very warmly dressed. Come !" This
last in a tone of command that made the
ghost ripple.

And they started.

They had not gone far before the water
ghost showed signs of distress.

"You walk too slowly," she said. " I am
nearly frozen. My knees are so stiff now I
can hardly move. I beseech you to accel-
erate your step."

" I should like to oblige a lady," returned
the master, courteously, "but my clothes
are rather heavy, and a hundred yards an

' THE WATER GHOST 1 7

hour is about my speed. Indeed, I think
we would better sit down here on this snow-
drift, and talk matters over."

**Do not! Do not do so, I beg !" cried
the ghost. " Let me move on. I feel my-
self growing rigid as it is. If we stop here,
I shall be frozen stiff."

" That, madam," said the master slowly,
and seating himself on an ice-cake — " that
is why I have brought you here. We have
been on this spot just ten minutes , we have
fifty more. Take your time about it, madam,
but freeze, that is all I ask of you."

" I cannot move my right leg now," cried
the ghost, in despair, " and my overskirt is a
solid sheet of ice. Oh, good, kind Mr. Ogle-
thorpe, light a fire, and let me go free from
these icy fetters."

" Never, madam. It cannot be. I have
you at last."

" Alas !" cried the ghost, a tear trickling
down her frozen cheek. *' Help me, I beg.
I congeal !"

"Congeal, madarfi, congeal!" returned
Oglethorpe, coldly. "You have drenched
me and mine for two hundred and three

1 8 THE WATER GHOST '

years, madam. To-night you have had your
last drench."

"Ah, but I shall thaw out again, and
then you'll see. Instead of the comfortably
tepid, genial ghost I have been in my past,
sir, I shall be iced - water," cried the lady,
threateningly.

" No, you won't, either," returned Ogle-
thorpe ; " for when you are frozen quite stiff,
I shall send you to a cold-storage warehouse,
and there shall you remain an icy work of
art forever more."

" But warehouses burn."

" So they do, but this warehouse cannot
burn. It is made of asbestos and surround-
ing it are fire-proof walls, and within those
walls the temperature is now and shall for-
ever be 416 degrees below the zero point ;
low enough to make an icicle of any flame
in this world — or the next," the master add-
ed, with an ill-suppressed chuckle.

" For the last time let me beseech you. I
would go on my knees to you, Oglethorpe,
were they not already frozen. I beg of
you do not doo — "

Here even the words froze on the water

THE WATER GHOST 1 9

ghost's lips and the clock struck one. There
was a momentary tremor throughout the
ice-bound form, and the moon, coming out
from behind a cloud, shone down on the
rigid figure of a beautiful woman sculptured
in clear, transparent Tee. There stood the
ghost of Harrowby Hall, conquered by the
cold, a prisoner for all time.

The heir of Harrowby had won at last,
and to-day in a large storage house in Lon-
don stands the frigid form of one who will
never again flood the house of Oglethorpe
with woe and sea-water.

As for the heir of Harrowby, his success
in coping with a ghost has made him fa-
mous, a fame that still lingers about him,
although his victory took place some twenty
years ago ; and so far from being unpopular
with the fair sex, as he was when we first
knew him, he has not only been married
twice, but is to lead a third bride to the
altar before the year is out.

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BAN-

GLETOP

For the purposes of this bit of history,
Bangletop Hall stands upon a grassy knoll
on the left bank of the River Dee, about
eighteen miles from the quaint old city of
Chester. It does not in reality stand there,
nor has it ever done so, but consideration
for the interests of the living compels me
to conceal its exact location, and so to be-
fog the public as to its whereabouts that
its identity may never be revealed to its
disadvantage. It is a rentable property,
and were it known that it has had a mys-
tery connected with it of so deep, dark,
and eerie a nature as that about to be re-
lated, I fear that its usefulness, save as an
accessory to romance, would be seriously

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 21

impaired, and that as an investment it
would become practically worthless.

The hall is a fair specimen of the archi-
tecture which prevailed at the time of Ed-
ward the Confessor ; that is to say, the main
portion of the structure, erected in Edward's
time by the first Baron Bangletop, has that
square, substantial, stony aspect which to
the eye versed in architecture identifies it at
once as a product of that enlightened era.
Later owners, the successive Barons Bangle-
top, have added to its original dimensions,
putting Queen Anne wings here, Elizabeth-
an ells there, and an Italian - Renaissance
facade on the river front. A Wisconsin
water tower, connected with the main build-
ing by a low Gothic alleyway, stands to the
south; while toward the east is a Greek
chapel, used by the present occupant as a
store-room for his wife's trunks, she having
lately returned from Paris with a wardrobe
calculated to last through the first half of
the coming London season. Altogether
Bangletop Hall is an impressive structure,
and at first sight gives rise to various emo-
tions in the aesthetic breast; some cavil,

22 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

Others admire. One leading architect of
Berlin travelled all the way from his Ger-
man home to Bangletop Hall to show that
famous structure to his son, a student in
the profession which his father adorned ; to
whom he is said to have observed that, ar-
chitecturally, Bangletop Hall was "cosmo-
politan and omniperiodic, and therefore a
liberal education to all who should come
to study and master its details." In short,
Bangletop Hall was an object-lesson to
young architects, and showed them at a
glance that which they should ever strive
to avoid.

Strange to say, for quite two centuries had
Bangletop Hall remained without a tenant,
and for nearly seventy-five years it had been
in the market for rent, the barons, father
and son, for many generations having found
it impossible to dwell within its walls, and
for a very good reason : no cook could ever
be induced to live at Bangletop for a longer
period than two weeks. Why the queens of
the kitchen invariably took what is common-
ly known as French leave no occupant could
ever learn, because, male or female, the de-

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 23

parted domestics never returned to tell, and
even had they done so, the pride of the Ban-
gletops would not have permitted them to
listen to the explanation. The Bangletop
escutcheon was clear of blots, no suspicion
even of a conversational blemish appearing
thereon, and it was always a matter of ex-
treme satisfaction to the family that no one
of its scions since the title was created had
ever been known to speak directly to any
one of lesser rank than himself, commu-
nication with inferiors being always had
through the medium of a private secretary,
himself a baron, or better, in reduced cir-
cumstances.

The first cook to leave Bangletop under
circumstances of a Gallic nature — that is,
without known cause, wages, or luggage —
had been employed by Fitzherbert Alexan-
der, seventeenth Baron of Bangletop, through
Charles Mortimor de Herbert, Baron Ped-
dlington, formerly of Peddlington Manor at
Dunwoodie-on-the-Hike, his private secre-
tary, a handsome old gentleman of sixty-
five, who had been deprived of his estates
by the crown in 1629 because he was sus-

24 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

pected of having inspired a comic broadside
published in those troublous days, and di-
rected against Charles the First, which had
set all London in a roar.

This broadside, one of very few which are
not preserved in the British Museum — and
a greater tribute to its rarity could not be
devised — was called, " A Good Suggestion
as to ye Proper Use of ye Chinne Whisker,"
and consisted of a few lines of doggerel
prhited beneath a caricature of the king,
with the crown hanging from his goatee,
reading as follows :

* * Ye King doth sporte a gallons grey goatee
Uponne ye chinne^ where every one may see.
And since ye Monarches head's too small to holde
With comfort to himself e ye crowne of gold.
Why not enwax and hooke ye goatee rare.
And lette ye British crown hang down from
there r

Whether or no the Baron of Peddlington
was guilty of this traitorous effusion no one,
not even the king, could ever really make
up his mind. The charge was never fully
proven, nor was De Herbert ever able to

\ DEPARTING

•7:

•
to •

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 27

refute it successfully, although he made
frantic efTorts to do so. The king, emi-
nently just in such matters, gave the baron
the benefit of the doubt, and inflicted only
half the penalty prescribed, confiscating his
estates, and letting him keep his head and
liberty. De Herbert's family begged the
crown to reverse the sentence, permitting
them to keep the estates, the king taking
their uncle's head in lieu thereof, he being
unmarried and having no children who
would mourn his loss. But Charles was
poor rather than vindictive at this period,
and preferring to adopt the other course,
turned a deaf ear to the petitioners. This
was probably one of the earliest factors in
the decadence of literature as a pastime for
men of high station.

De Herbert would have starved had it
not been for his old friend Baron Bangle-
top, who offered him the post of private
secretary, lately made vacant by the death
of the Duke of Algeria, who had been the
incumbent of that office for ten years, and
in a short time the Baron of Peddlington
was in full charge of the domestic arrange-

28 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

ments of his friend. It was far from easy,
the work that devolved upon him. He was
a proud, haughty man, used to luxury of
every sort, to whom contact with those who
serve was truly distasteful ; to whom the
necessity of himself serving was most gall-
ing; but he had the manliness to face the
hardships Fate had put upon him, particu-
larly when he realized that Baron Bangle-
top's attitude towards servants was such
that he could with impunity impose on the
latter seven indignities for every one that
was imposed on him. Misery loves com-
pany, particularly when she is herself the
hostess, and can give generously of her
stores to others.

Desiring to retrieve his fallen fortunes,
the Baron of Peddlington offered large
salaries to those whom he employed to
serve in the Bangletop menage, and on pay-
day, through an ingenious system of fines,
managed to retain almost seventy-five per
cent, of the funds for his own use. Of this
Baron Bangletop, of course, could know
nothing. He was aware that under De
Herbert the running expenses of his house-

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 29

hold were nearly twice what they had been
under the dusky Duke of Algeria ; but he
also observed that repairs to the property,
for which the late duke had annually paid
out several thousands of pounds sterling,
with very little to show for it, now cost him
as many hundreds with no fewer tangible
results. So he winked his eye — the only
unaristocratic habit he had, by-the-way —
and said nothing. The revenue was large
enough, he had been known to say, to sup-
port himself and all his relatives in state,
with enough left over to satisfy even Ali
Baba and the forty thieves.

Had he foreseen the results of his com-
placency in financial matters, I doubt if he
would have persisted therein.

For some ten years under De Herbert's
management everything went smoothly and
expensively for the Bangletop Hall people,
and then there came a change. The Baron
Bangletpp rang for his breakfast one morn-
ing, and his breakfast was not. The cook
had disappeared. Whither or why she had
gone, the private secretary professed to be
unable to say. That she could easily be

30 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

replaced, he was certain. Equally certain
was it that Baron Bangletop stormed and
raved for two hours, ate a cold breakfast — a
thing he never had been known to do be-
fore — and then departed for London to dine
at the club until Peddlington had secured a
successor to the departed cook, which the
private secretary succeeded in doing within
three days. The baron was informed of
his manager's success, and at the end of a
week returned to Bangletop Hall, arriving
there late on a Saturday night, hungry as a
bear, and not too amiable, the king having
negotiated a forcible loan with him during
his sojourn in the metropolis.

"Welcome to Bangletop, Baron," said De
Herbert, uneasily, as his employer alighted
from his coach. ^

" Blast your welcome, and serve the din-
ner," returned the baron, with a somewhat
ill grace.

At this the private secretary . seemed
much embarrassed. " Ahem !" he said.
"Til be very glad to have the dinner
served, my dear Baron ; but the fact is
I — er — I have been unable to provide

X
w

>
o

•53
>

O
H

V c'

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 33

anything but canned lobster and ap-
ples."

"What, in the name of Chaucer, does
this mean ?" roared Bangletop, who was a
great admirer of the father of English poe-
try ; chiefly because, as he was wont to say,
Chaucer showed that a bad speller could
be a great man, which was a condition of
affairs exactly suited to his mind, since in
the science of orthography he was weak,
like most of the aristocrats of his day. " I
thought you sent me word you had a cook ?"

" Yes, Baron, I did ; but the fact of the
matter is, sir, she left us last night, or, rath-
er, early this morning.^'

" Another one of your beautiful Parisian
exits, I presume ?" sneered the baron, tap-
ping the floor angrily with his toe.

"Well, yes, somewhat so; only she got
her money first."

"Money!" shrieked the baron. "Mon-
ey! Why in Liverpool did she get her
money ? What did we owe her money for ?
Rent ?"

" No, Baron ; for services. She cooked
three dinners."

34 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

" Well, you'll pay the bill out of your per-
quisites, that's all. She's done no cooking
for me, and she gets no pay from me. Why
do you think she, left?"

" She said—"

" Never mind what she said, sir," cried
Bangletop, cutting De Herbert syhort.
"When I am interested in the table-talk of
cooks, I'll let you know. What I wish to
hear is what do you think was the cause of
her leaving ?"

" I have no opinion on the subject," re-
plied the private secretary, with becoming
dignity. " I only know that at four o'clock
this morning she knocked at my door, and
demanded her wages for four days, and
vowed she'd stay no longer in the house."

" And why, pray, did you not inform me
of the fact, instead of having me travel
away down here from London?" queried
Bangletop.

"You forget. Baron," replied De Her-
bert, with a deprecatory gesture — " you for-
get that there is no system of telegraphy by
which you could be reached. I may be
poor, sir, but I'm just as much of a baron

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 35

as you are, and I will take the liberty of
saying right here, in what would be the
shadow of your beard, if you had. one, sir,
that a man who insists on receiving cable
messages when no such things exist is rath-
er rushing business."

" Pardon my haste, Peddlington, old
chap," returned the baron, softening. " You
are quite right. My desire was unreason-
able ; but I swear to you, by all ray ances-
tral Bangletops, that I am hungry as a pit
full of bears, and if there's one thing I can't
eat, it is lobster and apples. Can't you
scare up a snack of bread and cheese and
a little cold larded fillet ? If you'll supply
the fillet, I'll provide the cold."

At this sally the Baron of Peddlington
laughed and the quarrel was over. But
none the less the master of Bangletop went
to bed hungry ; nor could he do any better
in the morning at breakfast - time. The
butler had not been trained to cook, and
the coachman's art had once been tried on
a boiled egg, which no one had been able
to open, much less eat, and as it was the
parlor - maid's Sunday off, there was abso-

{

36 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

lutely no one in the house who could pre-
pare a meal. The Baron of Bangletop had
a sort of sneaking notion that if there were
nobody around he could have managed the
spit or gridiron himself; but, of course, in
view of his position, he could not make the
attempt. And so he once more returned to
London, and vowed never to set his foot
within the walls of Bangletop Hall again
until his ancestral home was provided with
a cook " copper-fastened and riveted to her
position."

And Bangletop Hall from that time was
as a place deserted. The baron never re-
turned, because he could not return without
violating his oath ; for De Herbert was not
able to obtain a cook for the Bangletop
cuisine who would stay, nor was any one
able to discover why. Cook after cook came,
stayed a day, a week, and one or two held
on for two weeks, but never longer. Their
course was invariably the same — they would
leave without notice ; nor could any induce-
ment be offered which would persuade them
to remain. The Baron of Peddlington be-
came, first round-shouldered, then deaf, and

PAY-DAY

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 39

then insane in his search for a permaneijt
cook, landing finally in an asylum, where
he died, four years after the demise of his
employer in London, of softening of the
brain. His last words were, " Why did you
leave your last place ?"

And so time went on. Barons of Bangle-
top were born, educated, and died. Dynas-
ties rose and fell, but Bangletop Hall re-
mained uninhabited, although it was not
until 1 799 that the family gave up all hopes
of being able to use their ancestral home.
Tremendous alterations, as I have already
hinted, were made. The drainage was care-
fully inspected, and a special apartment
connected with the kitchen, finished in hard-
wood, handsomely decorated, and hung with
rich tapestries, was provided for the cook,
in the vain hope that she might be induced
permanently to occupy her position. The
Queen Anne wing and Elizabethan ell were
constructed, the latter to provide bowling-
alleys and smoking-rooms for the probable
cousins of possible culinary queens, and
many there were who accepted the office
with alacrity, throwing it up with still greater

40 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

alacrity before the usual fortnight passed.
Then the Bangletops saw clearly that it was
impossible for them to live there, and mov-
ing away, the house was announced to be
"for rent, with all modern improvements,
conveniently located, spacious grounds, es-
pecially adapted to the use of those who do
their own cooking." The last clause of the
announcement puzzled a great many people,
who went to see the mansion for no other
reason than to ascertain just what the an-
nouncement meant, and the line, which was
inserted in a pure spirit of facetious bravado,
was probably the cause of the mansion's
quickly renting, as hardly a month had
passed before it was leased for one year by
a retired London brewer, whose wife's curi-
osity had *beeh so excited by the strange
wording of the advertisement that she trav-
elled out to Bangletop to gratify it, fell in
love with the place, and insisted upon her
husband's taking it for a season. The luck
of the brewer and his wife was no better
than that of the Bangletops. Their cooks
— and they had fourteen during their stay
there — fled after an average service of four

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 4 1

days apiece, and later the tenants them-
selves were forced to* give up and return to
London, where they told their friends that
the "'all was 'aunted," which might have
filled the Bangletops with concern had they
heard of it. They did not hear of it, how-
ever, for they and their friends did not know
the brewer and the brewer's friends, and as
for complaining to the Bangletop agent in
the matter, the worthy beer-maker thought
he would better not do that, because he had
hopes of being knighted some day, and he
did not wish to antagonize so illustrious a
family as the Bangletops by running down
their famous hall — an antagonism which
might materially affect the chances of him-
self and his good wife when they came to
knock at the doors of London society. The
lease was allowed to run its course, the rent
was paid when due, and at the end of the
stipulated term Bangletop Hall was once
more on the lists as for rent.

42 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

For fourscore years and ten did the same
hard fortune pursue the owners of Bangle-
top. Additions to the property were made
immediately upon request of possible lessees.
The Greek chapel was constructed in 1868
at the mere suggestion of a Hellenic prince,
who came to England to write a history of
the American rebellion, finding the informa-
tion in back files of British newspapers ex-
actly suited to the purposes of picturesque
narrative, and no more misleading than
most home-made history. Bangletop was
retired, "far from the gadding crowd," as
the prince gut it, and therefore just the
place in which a historian of the romantic •
school might produce his magnum opus
without disturbance ; the only objection be-
ing that there was no place whither the
eminently Christian sojourner could go to
worship according to his faith, he being a
communicant in the Greek Church. This
defect Baron Bangletop immediately reme-
died by erecting and endowing the chapel ;

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 43

and his youngest son, having been found
too delicate morally for the army, was ap-
pointed to the living and placed in charge
of the chapel, having first embraced with
considerable ardor the faith upon which
the soul of the princely tenant was wont to
feed. All of these improvements — chapel,
priest, the latter's change of faith, and all —
the Bangletop agent put at the exceedingly
low sum of forty-two guineas per annum
and boafd for the priest ; an offer which
the prince at once accepted, stipulating,
however, that the lease should be terminable
at any time he or his landlord should see
fit. Against this the agent fought nobly,
but without avail. The prince had heard
rumors about the cooks of Bangletop, and
he was wary. Finally the stipulation was
accepted by the baron, with what result the
reader need hardly be told. The prince
stayed two weeks, listened to one sermon
in classic university Greek by the youthful
Bangletop, was deserted by his cook, and
moved away.

After the departure of the prince the es-
tate was neglected for nearly twenty -two

44 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

years, the owner having made up his mind
that the case was hopeless. At the end of
that period there came from the United
States a wealthy shoemaker, Hankinson J.
Terwilliger by name, chief owner of the Ter-
williger Three-dollar Shoe Company (Lim-
ited), of Soleton, Massachusetts, and to him
was leased Bangletop Hall, with all its rights
and appurtenances, for a term of five years.
Mr. Terwilliger was the first applicant for
the hall as a dwelling to whom the agent, at
the instance of the baron, spoke in a spirit
of absolute candor. The baron was well on
in years, and he did not feel like getting into
trouble with a Yankee, so he said, at his
time of life. The hall had been a thorn in
his flesh all his days, and he didn't care if
it was never occupied, and therefore he
wished nothing concealed from a prospec-
tive tenant. It was the agent's candor more
than anything else that induced Mr. Terwil-
liger to close with him for the term of five
years. He suspected that the Bangletops
did not want him for a tenant, and from the
moment that notion entered his head, he
was resolved that he would be a tenant.

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 45

" I'm as good a man as any baron that
ever lived," he said ; " and if it pleases
Hankinson J. Terwilliger to live in a baro-
nial hall, a baronial hall is where Hankinson
J. Terwilliger puts up."

" We certainly have none of the feeling
which your words seem to attribute to us,
my dear sir," the agent had answered.
"Baron Bangletop would feel highly hon-
ored to have so distinguished a sojourner in
England as yourself occupy his estate, but
he doefe not wish you to take it without fully
understanding the circumstances. Desira-
ble as Bangletop Hall is, it seems fated to
be unoccupied because it is thought to be
haunted, or something of that sort, the effect
of which is to drive away cooks, and without
cooks life is hardly an ideal."

Mr. Terwilliger laughed. "Ghosts and
me are not afraid of each other," he said.
" * Let 'em haunt,' I say ; and as for cooks,
Mrs. H. J. T. hasn't had a liberal education
for nothing. We could live if all the cooks
in creation were to go off in a whiff. We
have daughters too, we have. Good smart
American girls, who can adorn a palace or

46 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

grace a hut on demand, not afraid of pov-
erty, and able to take care of good round
dollars. They can play the piano all the
morning and cook dinner all the afternoon
if -they're called on to do it ; so your difficul-
ties ain't my difficulties. I'll take the hall at
your figures ; term, five years ; and if the
baron '11 come down and spend a month
with us at any time, I don't care when, we'll
show him what a big lap Luxury can get up
when she tries."

And so it happened. The New York
papers announced that Hankinson J. Ter-
williger, Mrs. Terwilliger, the Misses Ter-
williger, and Master Hankinson J. Terwil-
liger, Jun., of Soleton, Massachusetts, had
plunged info the dizzy whirl of English so-
ciety, and that the sole of the three-dollar
shoe now trod the baronial halls of the Ban-
gletops. Later it was announced that the
Misses Terwilliger, of Bangletop Hall, had
been presented to the queen ; that the Ter-
willigers had entertained the Prince of Wales
at Bangletop ; in fact, the Terwilligers be-
came an important factor in the letters of
all foreign correspondents of American pa-

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 47

pers, for the president of the Terwilliger
Three -dollar Shoe Company, of Soleton,
Massachusetts (Limited), was now in full
possession of the historic mansion, and was
living up to his surroundings.

For a time everything was plain sailing
for the Americans at Bangletop. The dire
forebodings of the agent* did not seem to be
fulfilled, and Mr. Terwilliger was beginning
to feel aggrieved. He had hired a house
with a ghost, and he wanted the use of it ;
but when he reflected upon the consequences
below stairs, he held his peace. He was not
so sure, after he had stayed at Bangletop
awhile, and had had his daughters presented
to the queen, that he could be so indepen-
dent of cooks as he had at first supposed.
Several times he had hinted rather broadly
that some of the old New England home-
made flap- jacks would be most pleasing to
his palate ; but since the prince had spent
an afternoon on the lawn of Bangletop, the
young ladies seemed deeply pained at the
mere mention of their accomplishments in
the line of griddles and batter; nor could
Mrs. Terwilliger, after having tasted the

48 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

joys of aristocratic life, bring herself to don
the apron which so became her portly per-
son in the early American days, and prepare
for her lord and master one of those de-
licious platters of poached eggs and break-
fast bacon, the mere memory of which made
his mouth water. In short, palatial sur-
roundings had too obviously destroyed in
his wife and daughters all that capacity for
happiness in a hovel of which Mr. Terwil-
liger had been so proud, and concerning
which he had so eloquently spoken to Baron
Bangletop's agent, and he now found him-
self in the position of Damocles. The hall
was leased for a term, entertainment had
been provided for the county with lavish
hand ; but success was dependent entirely
upon his ability to keep a cook, his family
having departed from their republican prin-
ciples, and the history of the house was
dead against a successful issue. So he de-
cided that, after all, it was better that the
ghost should be allowed to remain quies-
cent, and he uttered no word of complaint.
It was just as well, too, that Mr. Terwil-
liger held his peace, and refrained from ad-

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 49

dressing a complaining missive to the agent
of Bangletop Hall ; for before a message of
that nature could have reached the person
addressed, its contents would have been
misleading, for at a quarter after midnight
on the morning of the date set for the first
of a series of grand banquets to the county
folk, there came from the kitchen of Bangle-
top Hall a quick succession of shrieks that
sent the three Misses Terwilliger into hys-
terics, and caused Hankinson J. Terwilli-
ger's sole remaining lock to stand erect.
Mrs. Terwilliger did not hear the shrieks,
owing to a lately acquired habit of hear-
ing nothing that proceeded from below
stairs.

The first impulse of Terwilliger pere was
to dive down under the bedclothes, and en-
deavor to drown the fearful sound by his
own labored breathing, but he never yield-
ed to first impulses. So he awaited the
second, which came simultaneously with a
second series of shrieks and a cry for help
in the unmistakable voice of the cook; a
lady, by-the-way, who had followed the Ter-
williger fortunes ever since the Terwilligers

50 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

began to have fortunes, and whose first ca-*
pacity in the family had been the dual one
of mistress of the kitchen and confidante of
madame. The second impulse was to arise
in his might, put on a stout pair of the Ter-
williger three-dollar brogans — the strongest
shoe made, having been especially devised
for the British Infantry in the Soudan — and
garments suitable to the occasion, namely, a
mackintosh and pair of broadcloth trousers,
and go to the rescue of the distressed do-
mestic. This Hankinson J. Terwilliger at
once proceeded to do, arming himself with
a pair of horse - pistols, murmuring on the
way below a soft prayer, the only one he
knew, and which, with singular inappropri-
ateness on this occasion, began with the
words, ** Now I lay me down to sleep."

" What's the matter, Judson ?" queried
Mrs. Terwilliger, drowsily, as she opened
Jier eyes and saw her husband preparing for
the fray.

She no longer called him Hankinson, not
because she did not think it a good name,
nor was it less euphonious to her ear than
Judson, but Judson was Mr. Terwilliger's

V V w fc _V

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 53

middle name, and middle names were quite
the thing, she had observed, in the best cir-
cles. It was doubtless due to this discovery
that her visiting cards had been engraved
to read " Mrs. H. Judson-Terwilliger," the
hyphen presumably being a typographical
error, for which the engraver was responsi-
ble.

" Matter enough," growled Hankinson. " I
have reason to believe that that jackass of
a ghost is on duty to-night."

At the word ghost a pseudo- aristocratic
shriek pervaded the atmosphere, and Mrs.
Terwilliger, forgetting her social position
for a moment, groaned " Oh, Hank !" and
swooned away. And then the president of
the Terwilliger Three-dollar Shoe Company
of Soleton, Massachusetts (Limited), de-
scended to the kitchen.

Across the sill of the kitchen door lay the
culinary treasure whose lobster croquettes,
the Prince of Wales had likened unto a
dream of Lucullus. Within the kitchen
were signs of disorder. Chairs were upset ;
the table was lying flat on its back, with its
four legs held rigidly up in the air; the

54 THE SPtfCTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

kitchen library, consisting of a copy of Marie
Antoinette's Dream- Book; a yellow - covered
novel bearing the title Little Lucy ; or, The
Kitchen-maid who Became a Marchioness; and
Sixty SoupSy by One who Knows , lay strewn
about the room, the Dream-Book sadly torn,
and Little Lucy disfigured forever with bat-
ter. Even to the unpractised eye it was
evident that something had happened, and
Mr. Terwilliger felt a cold chill mounting
his spine three sections at a time. Whether
it was the chill or his concern for the pros-
trate cook that was responsible or not I
cannot say, but for some cause or other Mr.
Terwilliger immediately got down on his
knees, in which position he gazed fearfully
about him for a few minutes, and then timid^
ly remarked, " Cook !'*

There was no answer.

"Mary, I say. Cook," he whispered,
"what the deuce is the meaning of all this?"

A low moan was all that came from the
cook, nor would Hankinson have listened
to more had there been more to hear, for
simult2tneously with the moan he became
uncomfortably conscious of a presence. In

n
o
o

Pi
M

K tt ii

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 57

trying to describe it afterwards, Hankinson
said that at first he thought a cold draught
from a dank cavern filled with a million
eels, and a rattlesnake or two thrown in for
luck, was blowing over him, and he avowed
that it was anything but pleasant ; and then
it seemed to change into a mist drawn
largely from a stagnant pool in a malarial
country, floating through which were great
quantities of finely chopped sea- weed, wet
hair, and an indescribable atmosphere of
something the chief quality of which was a
sort of stale damminess that was awful in
its intensity.

" I'm glad," Mr. Terwilliger murmured to
himself, "that I ain't one of those delicately
reared nobles. If I had anything less than
a right-down regular republican constitution
I'd die of fright."

And then his natural grit came to his
rescue, and it was well it did, for the pres-
ence had assumed shape, and now sat on
the window-ledge in the form of a hag, glar-
ing at him from out of the depths of her
unfathomable eyes, in which, despite their

deadly greenness, there lurked a tinge of red
4—2

58 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

caused by small specks of that hue semi-
occasion ally seen floating across her dilated
pupils.

" You are the Bangletop ghost, I pre-
sume ?" said Terwilliger, rising and stand-
ing near the fire to thaw out his system.

The spectre made no reply, but pointed
to the door.

"Yes," Terwilliger said, as if answering
a question. " That's the way out, madame.
It's a beautiful exit, too. Just try it."

" H.'I knows the wi out," returned the
spectre, rising and approaching the tenant
of Bangletop, whose solitary lock also rose,
being too polite to remain seated while the
ghost walked. " H'l also knows the wi
in, 'Ankinson Judson Terwilliger."

"That's very evident, madame, and be-
tween you and me I wish you didn't," re-
turned Hankinson, somewhat relieved to
hear the ghost talk, even if her voice did
sound like the roar of a conch-shell with a
bad case of grip. " I may say to you that,
aside from a certain uncanny satisfaction
which I feel at being permitted for the first
time in my life to gaze upon the linaments

• *• * »

"1 -

•

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP* 6 1

of a real live misty musty spook, I regard
your coming here as an invasion of the
sacred rights of privacy which is, as you
might say, * hinexcusable.' "

" Hinvaision ?" retorted the ghost, snap^
ping her fingers in his face with such effect
that his chin dropped until Terwilliger be-
gan to fear it might never resume its normal
position. " Hinvaision ? HTd like to know
'oo's the hinvaider. HTve occupied hese
'ere 'alls for hover two *undred years."

"Then it's time you moved, unless per-
chance you are the ghost of a mediaeval
porker," Hankinson said, his calmness re-
turning now that he had succeeded in plas-
tering his iron-gray lock across the top of
his otherwise bald head. " Of course, if you
are a spook of that kind you want the earth,
and maybe you'll get it."

" H'l'm no porker," returned the spectre.
" HTm simply the shide of a poor abused
cook which is hafter revenge."

" Ah !" ejaculated Terwilliger, raising his
eyebrows, "this is getting interesting. You're
a spook with a grievance, eh ? Against me ?
I've never wronged a ghost that I know of."

62 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

" No, h'lVe no 'ard feelinks against you,
sir," answered the ghost. "Hin fact h'l
don't know nothink about you. My trou-
ble's with them Baingletops, and hTm a-
pursuin' of 'em. H'lVe cut 'em out of
two 'undred years of rent 'ere. They might
better 'ave pide me me waiges hin full."

*' Oho !" cried Terwilliger ; " it's a ques-
tioif of wages, is it ? The Bangletops were
hard up ?"

" ' Ard up ? The Baingletops r*" laughed
the ghost. " When they gets 'ard up the
Baink o' Hengland will be in all the sixty
soups mentioned in that there book."

" You seem to be up in the vernacular,"
returned Terwilliger, with a smile. "I'll
bet you are an old fraud of a modern
ghost."

Here he discharged all six chambers of
his pistol into the body of the spectre.

"No taikers," retorted the ghost, as the
bullets whistled through her chest, and
struck deep into the wall on the other side
of the kitchen. "That's a noisy gun you've
got, but you cam't ly a ghost with cold lead
hany more than you can ly a corner-stone

C/3

H
O

H
W

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 65

with a chicken. H'I'm 'ere to sty until I
gets me waiges."

"What was the amount of your wages
due at the time of your discharge ?" asked
Hankinson.

"H'l was gettin' ten pounds a month,"
returned the spectre.

" Geewhittaker !" cried Terwilliger, " you
must have been an all-fired fine cook."

" H'l was," assented the ghost, with a
proud smile. " H'l cooked a boar's 'ead
for 'is Royal 'Ighness King Charles when
'e visited Baingletop 'All as which was the
finest 'e hever taisted, so 'e said, hand 'e'd
'ave knighted me hon the spot honly me
sex wasn't suited to the title. *You carn't
make a knight out of a woman,* says the
king, * but give 'er my compliments, and tell
'er 'er monarch says as 'ow she's a cook as
is too good for 'er staition.' "

"That was very nice," said Terwilliger.
" No one could have desired a higher rec-
ommendation than that."

" My words hexackly when the baron's
privit secretary told me two dys laiter as

'ow the baron's heggs wasn't done proper,"

66 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

said the ghost. " HI says to 'im, says I :
* The baron's heggs be blowed. My mon-
arch's hopinion is worth two of any ten
baron s's livin', and Mister Baingletop,' (h'l
alius called 'im mister when 'e was ugly,) * can
get 'is heggs cooked helsewhere if 'e don't
like the wy h'l boils 'em.' Hand what do
you suppose the secretary §aid then ?"

" I give it up," replied Terwilliger.
" What .>"

" 'E said as 'ow h'l 'ad the big 'ead."

" How disgusting of him !" murmured
Terwilliger. " That was simply low."

" Hand then 'e accuged me of bein' him-
pudent."

" No !"

" 'E did, hjndeed ; hand then 'e dis-
charged me without me waiges. Hof course
h'l wouldn't sty after that ; but h'l says to
'im, * Hif I don't get me py, hTll 'aunt
this place from the dy of me death ;' hand
'e says, * 'Aunt awy.' "

" And you have kept your word."

" H'l 'ave that ! H'I've made it 'ot for
'em, too."

"Well, now, look here," said Terwilliger,

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 67

"I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay you
your wages if you'll go back to Spookland
and mind your own business. Ten pounds
isn't much when three-dollar shoes cost fif-
teen cents a pair and sell like hot waffles.
Is it a bargain r*"

" H'l was sent off with three months'
money owin' me," said the ghost.

"Well, call it thirty pounds, then," replied
Terwilliger.

" With hinterest — compound hinterest
at six per cent. — for two 'undred and thirty
years," said the ghost.

" Phew !" whistled Terwilliger. " Have
you any idea how much money that is r*"

"Certingly," replied- the ghost. "Hit's
just 63,609,609 pounds 6 shillings 4^ pence.
When h'l gets that, h'l flies ; huntil I gets
it hT stys 'ere an' I 'aimts."

" Say," said Terwilliger, " haven't you
been chumming with an Italian ghost named
Shylock over on the other shore?"

" Shylock !" said the ghost. " No, h'I've
never 'card the naime. Perhaps 'e's stop-
pin' at the bother place."

" Very likely," said Terwilliger. " He is

68 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

an eminent saint alongside of you. But I
say now, Mrs. Spook, or whatever your
name is, this is rubbing it in, to try to col-
lect as much money as that, particularly
from me, who wasn't to blame in any way,
and on whom you haven't the spook of a
claim."

" H'I'm very sorry for you, Mr. Terwilli-
ger," said the ghost. " But my vow must
be kept sacrid."

" But why don't you come down on the
Bangletops up in London, and squeeze it
out of them ^

" H'l carn't. H'I'm bound to 'aunt this
'all, an' that's hall there is about it. H'l
carn't find a better wy to ly them Baingle-
tops low than by attachin' of their hincome,
hand the rent of this 'all is the honly bit of
hincome within my reach."

" But I've leased the place for five years,"
said Terwilliger, in despair ; " and I've paid
the rent in advance."

" Carn't 'elp it," returned the ghost. " Hif
you did that, hit's your own fault."

" I wouldn't have done it, except to ad-
vertise my shoe business," said Terwilliger,

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 69

ruefully. "The items in the papers at home
that arise from my occupancy of this house,
together with the social cinch it gives me,
are worth the money ; but I'm hanged if it's
worth my while to pay back salaries to ev-
ery grasping apparition that chooses to rise
up out of the moat and dip his or her clam-
my hand into my surplus. The shoe trade
is a blooming big thing, but the profits aren't
big enough to divide with tramp ghosts."

" Your tone is very 'aughty, 'Ankinson J.
Terwilliger, but it don't haffeck me. H'l
don't care 'oo pys the money, an' h'l
'aven't got you into this scripe. You've
done that yourself. Hon the other 'and,
sir, h'l've showed you 'ow to get out of it."

** Well, perhaps you're right," returned
Hankinson. " I can't say I blame you for
not perjuring yourself, particularly since
youVe been dead long enough to have dis-
covered what the probable consequences
would be. But I do wish there was some
other way out of it. / couldn't pay you all
that money without losing a controlling in-
terest in the shoe company, and that's hard-
ly worth my while, now is it ?"

70 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

" No, Mr. Terwilliger ; hit is not."

" I have a scheme," said Hankinson, after
a moment or two of deep thought. " Why
don't you go back to the spirit world and
expose the Bangletops there ? They have
spooks, haven't they.^"

" Yes," replied the ghost, sadly. " But
the spirit world his as bad as this 'ere. The
spook of a cook cam't reach the spook of a
baron there hany more than a scullery-maid
can reach a markis 'ere. H'l tried that
when the baron died and came over to the
bother world, but 'e 'ad 'is spook flunkies on
'and to tell me 'e was hout drivin' with the
ghost of William the Conqueror and the
shide of Solomon. H'l knew 'e wasn't, but
what could h'l do ?"

" It was a mean game of bluff," said Ter-
williger. " I suppose, though, if you were
the shade of a duchess, you could simply
knock Bangletop silly ?"

" Yes, and the Baron of Peddlington too.
'E was the private secretary as said h'l 'ad
the big 'ead."

" H'm !" said Terwilliger, meditatively.
" Would you — er — would you consent to re-

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 7 1

tire from this haunting business of yours,
and give me a receipt for that bill for wages,
interest and all, if I had you made over into
the spook of a duchess ? Revenge is sweet,
you know, and there are some revenges that
are simply a thousand times more balmy
than riches."

** Would h'l ?" ejaculated the ghost, rising
and looking at the clock. " Would h'l ?''
she repeated. " Well, rather. If h'l could
enter spook society as a duchess, you can
wager a year's hincome them Bangletops
wouldn't be hin it."

"Good! I am glad to see that you are
a spook of spirit. If you had veins, I be-
lieve there 'd be sporting blood in them."

"Thainks," said the ghost, dryly. "But
'ow can it hever be did V^

" Leave that to me," Terwilliger answered.
"We'll call a truce for two* weeks, at the
end of which time you must come back
here, and we'll settle on the final arrange-
ments. Keep your own counsel in the mat-
ter, and don't breathe a word about your
intentions to anybody. Above all, keep
sober."

72 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

" HTm no cannibal," retorted the ghost.

" Who said you were ?" asked Terwilliger.

" You intimated as much," said the ghost,
with a smile. "You said as 'ow I must
keep sober, and 'ow could I do hother-
wise hunless I swallered some spirits ?"

Terwilliger laughed. He thouglit it was
a pretty good joke for a ghost — especially
a cook's ghost — and then, having agreed on
the hour of midnight one fortnight thence
for the next meeting, they shook hands and
parted.

" What was it, Hankinson ?" asked Mrs.
Terwilliger, as her husband crawled back
into bed. " Burglars ?"

"Not a burglar," returned Hankinson.
" Nothing but a ghost— a poor, old, female
ghost."

" Ghost !" cried Mrs. Terwilliger, trem-
bling with fright. " In this house ?"

" Yes, my dear. Haunted us by mistake,
that's all. Belongs to another place entire-
ly; got a little befogged, and came here
without intending to, that's all. When she
found out her mistake, she apologized, and
left."

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 75

"What did she have on?" asked Mrs.
Terwilliger, with a sigh of relief.

But the. president of the Three -dollar
Shoe Company, of Soleton, Massachusetts
(Limited), said nothing. He had dropped
off into a profound slumber.

Ill

For the next two weeks Terwilliger lived
in a state of preoccupation that worried his
wife and daughters to a very considerable
extent. They were afraid that something
had happened, or was about to happen, in
connection with the shoe corporation ; and
this deprived them of sleep, particularly the
elder Miss Terwilliger, who had danced
four times at a recent ball with an impecu-
nious young earl, whom she suspected of
having intentions. Ariadne was in a state
of grave apprehension, because she knew
that much as the earl might love her, it
would be difficult for them to marry on his
income, which was literally too small to

76 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGi^ETOP

keep the roof over his head in decent re-
pair.

But it was not business troubles that oc-
cupied every sleeping and waking thought
of Hankinson Judson Terwilliger. His
mind was now set upon the hardest problem
it had ever had to cope with, that problem
being how to so ennoble the spectre cook
of Bangletop that she might outrank the
ancestors of his landlord in the other world
— the shady world, he called it. The living
cook had been induced to remain partly by
threats and partly by promises of increased
pay; the threats consisting largely of ex-
pressions of determination to leave her in
England, thousands of miles from her home
in Massachusetts, deserted and forlorn, the
poor woman being insufficiently provided
with funds to get back to America, and
holding in her veins a strain of Celtic blood
quite large enough to make the idea of re-
maining an outcast in England absolutely
intolerable to her. At the end of seven
days Terwilliger was seemingly as far from
the solution of his problem as ever, and at
the grand fete given by himself and wife on

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 77

the afternoon of the seventh day of his
trial, to the Earl of Mugley, the one in
whom Ariadne was interested, he seemed
almost rude to his guests, which the latter
overlooked, taking it for the American way
of entertaining. It is very hard for a shoe-
maker to entertain earls, dukes, and the
plainest kind of every-day lords under ordi-
nary circumstances ; but when, in addition
to the duties of host, the maker of soles has
to think out a recipe for the making of an
aristocrat out of a deceased plebe, a polite
drawing-room manner is hardly to be ex-
pected. Mr. Terwilliger's manner remained
of the kind to be expected under the cir-
cumstances, neither better nor worse, until
the flunky at the door announced, in sten-
torian tones, "The Hearl of Mugley."

The " Hearl " of Mugley seemed to be
the open sesame to the door betwixt Ter-
williger and success. Simultaneously with
the entrance of the earl the solution of his
problem flashed across the mind of the
master of Bangle top, and his affronting de-
meanor, his preoccupation and all disap-
peared in an instant. Indeed, so elegantly

78 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

enthusiastic was his reception of the earl
that Lady Maud Sniffles, on the other side
of the room, whispered in the ear of the
Hon. Miss Pottleton that Mugley's credit-
ors were in luck ; to which the Hon. Miss
Pottleton, whose smiles upon the nobleman
had been returned unopened, curved her
upper lip spitefully, and replied that they
were indeed, but she didn't envy Ariadne
that pompous little error of nature's, the
earl.

" Howdy do. Earl ?" said Terwilliger.
" Glad to see you looking so well. How's
your mamma ?"

"The countess is in her usual state of
health, Mr. Terwilliger," returned the earl.

" Ain't she coming this afternoon ?"

" I really can't say," answered Mugley.
" I asked her if she was coming, and all she
did was to call for her salts. She's a little
given to fainting -spells, and the slightest
shock rather upsets her."

And then the earl turned on his heel and
sought out the fair Ariadne, while Terwilli-
ger, excusing himself, left the assemblage,
and went directly to his private office in the

THE H'EARL of MUCLEY

^♦' *.

^ -*
^'•»' •

•:

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 8 1

crypt of the Greek chapel. Arrived there,
he seated himself at his desk and wrote the
following formal card, which he put in an
envelope and addressed to the Earl of Mug-
ley :

" If the Earl of Mugley will call at the
private office of Mr. H. Judson Terwilliger
at once, he will not only greatly oblige Mr.
H. Judson Terwilliger, but may also hear of
something to his advantage."

The card written, Terwilliger summoned

an attendant, ordered a quantity of liqueurs,

whiskey, sherry, port, and lemon squash for

* two to be brought to the office, and then

sent his communication to the earl.

Now the earl was a grea*t stickler for eti-
quette, and he did not at all like the idea of
one in his position waiting upon one of Mr.
Terwilliger's rank, or lack of rank, and, at
first thought, he was inclined to ignore the
request of his host, but a combination of
circumstances served to change his resolu-
tion. He so seldom heard anything to his
advantage that, for mere novelty's sake, he
thought he would do as he was asked ; but
the question of his dignity rose up again.

82 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

and shoving the note into his pocket he
tried to forget it. After five minutes he
found he could not forget it, and putting his
hand into the pocket for the missive, mean-
ing to give it a second reading, he drew out
another paper by mistake, which was, in
brief, a reminder from a firm of London
lawyers that he owed certain clients of
theirs a few thousands of pounds for the
clothing that had adorned his back for the
last two years, and stating that proceedings
would ,be begun if at the expiration of three
months the account was not paid in full.
The reminder settled it. The Earl of Mug-
ley graciously concluded to grant Mr. H.
Judson Terwilligfer an audience in the pri-
vate office under the Greek chapel.

"Sit down. Earl, and have a cream de
mint with me," said Terwilliger, as the earl,
four minutes later, entered the apartment.

" Thanks," returned the earl. " Beauti-
ful color that," he added, pleasantly, smack-
ing his lips with satisfaction as the soft
green fluid disappeared from the glass into
his inner earl.

"Fine," said Terwilliger. " Little unripe.

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 8^

perhaps, but pleasant to the eye. I prefer
the hue of the MaraschinC^.mySelf. Just
taste that Maraschino, Earl. It's Ai ; thirty-
six dollars a case."

" You wanted to see me about some mat-
ter of interest to both of us, I believe, Mr.
Terwilliger," said the earl, declining the
proffered Maraschino.

" Well, yes," returned Terwilliger. " More
of interest to you, perhaps, than to me. The
fact is. Earl, IVe taken quite a shine to you,
so much of a one in fact, that IVe looked
you up at a commercial agency, and H. J.
Terwilliger never does that unless he's
mightily interested in a man."

" I — er — I hope you are not to be preju-
diced against me," the earl said, uneasily,
" by — er — by what those cads of tradesmen
say about me."

" Not a bit," returned Terwilliger — " not
a bit. In fact, what I've discovered has
prejudiced me in your favor. You are just
the man I've been looking for for some
days. I've wanted a man with three A blood
and three Z finances for 'most a week now,
and from what I gather from Burke and

84 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

Bradstreet, you fill the bill. You owe pretty
much everybody from your tailor to the col-
lector of pew rents at your church, eh ?"

"I've been unfortunate in financial mat-
ters," returned the earl ; " but I have left
the family name untarnished."

** So I believe, Earl. That's what I ad-
mire about you. Some men with your debts
would be driven to drink or other pastimes
of a more or less tarnishing nature, and I
admire you for the admirable restraint you
have put upon yourself. You owe, I am
told, about twenty-seven thousand pounds."

" My secretary has the figures, I believe,"
said the earl, slightly bored.

" Well, we'll say thirty thousand in round
figures. Now what hope have you of ever
paying that sum off ?"

"None — unless I — er — well, unless I
should be fortunate enough to secure a rich
wife.''

"Precisely; thatisexactly what I thought,"
rejoined Terwilliger. " Marriage is your
only asset, and as yet that is hardly negoti-
able. Now I have called you here this af-
ternoon to make a proposition to you. If

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 8

you will marry according to my wishes I
will give you an income of five thousand
pounds a year for the next five years."

" I don't quite understand you," the earl
replied, in a disappointed tone. It was evi-
dent that five thousand pounds per annum
was too small a figure for his tastes.

"I think I was quite plain," said Ter-
williger, and he repeated his offer.

" I certainly admire the lady very much,"
said the earl; "but the settlement of in-
come seems very small."

Terwilliger opened his eyes wide with as-
tonishment. "Oh, you admire the lady,
eh ?" he said. " Well, there is no account-
ing for tastes."

"You surprise me slightly," stiid the earl,
in response to this remark. "The lady is
certainly worthy of any man's admira-
tion. She is refined, cultivated, beautiful,
and—"

" Ahem !" said Terwilliger. " May I ask,
my dear Earl, to whom you refer ?"

" To Ariadne, of course. I thought yoftr
course somewhat unusual, but we do not
pretend to comprehend you Americans over

86 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

here. Your proposition is that I shall mar-
ry Ariadne ?"

I hesitate to place on record what Ter-
williger said in answer to this statement.
It was forcible rather than polite, and the
earl from that moment adopted a new sim-
ile for degrees of profanity, substituting "to
swear like an American " for the old forms
having to do with pirates and troopers.
The string of expletives was about five
minutes in length, at the end of which
time Terwilliger managed to say :

" No such d proposition ever entered

my mind. I want you to marry a cold,
misty, musty spectre, nothing more or less,
and I'll tell you why."

And theiS he proceeded to tell the Earl of
Mugley all that he knew of the history of
Bangletop Hall, concluding with a narra-
tion of his experiences with the ghost cook.

" My rent here," he said, in conclusion,
"is five thousand pounds per annum. The
advertising I get out of the fact of my be-
ing here and swelling it with you nabobs is
worth twenty-five thousand pounds a year,
and Tm willing to pay, in good hard cash.

n
o

•> to •>

• •

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 89

twenty per cent, of that amount rather than
be forced to give up. Now here's your
chance to get an income without an encum-
brance and stave off your creditors. Mar-
ry the spook, so that she can go back to the
spirit land a countess and make it hot for
the Bangletops, and don't be so allfired
proud. She'll be disappointed enough I
can tell you, when I inform her that an earl
was the best I could do, the promised duke
not being within reach. If she says earls
are drugs in the market, I won't be able to
deny it ; and, after all, my lad, a good cook
is a greater blessing in this world than any
earl that ever lived, and a blamed sight
rarer."

"Your proposition is absolutely ridicu-
lous, Mr. Terwilliger," replied the earl.
"I'd look well marrying a draught from
a dark cavern, as you call it, now wouldn't
I ? To say nothing of the impossibility of
a Mugley marrying a cook. I cannot en-
tertain the proposition."

" You'll find you can't entertain anything
if you don't watch out," fumed Terwilliger,
in return.

90 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

" I'm not so sure about that," replied the
earl, haughtily, sipping his lemon squash.
" I fancy Miss Ariadne is not entirely in-
different to me."

" Well, you might just as well understand
on this 1 8th day of July, i8 — , as any other
time, that my daughter Ariadne never be-
comes the Earless of Mugley," said Ter-
williger, in a tone of exasperation.

" Not even when her father considers the
commercial value of such an alliance for his
daughter?" retorted the earl, shaking his
finger in Terwilliger's face. "Not even
when the President of the Three -dollar
Shoe Company, of Soleton, Massachusetts
(Limited), considers the advertising sure
to result from a marriage between his house
and that of Mugley, with presents from her
majesty the queen, the Duke of York act-
ing as best man, and telegrams of congrat-
ulation from the crowned heads of Europe^
pouring in at the rate of two an hour for
half as many hours as there are thrones?"

Terwilliger turned pale.

The picture painted by the earl was ter-
ribly alluring.

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 9 1

He hesitated

He was lost.

" Mugley," he whispered, hoarsely —
" Mugley, I have wronged you. I thought
you were a fortune-hunter. I see you love
her. Take her, my boy, and pass me the
brandy."

" Certainly, Mr. Terwilliger," replied the
earl, affably. " And then, if youVe no ob-
jection, you may pass it back, and Til join
you in a thimbleful myself."

And then the two men drank each oth-
er's health in silence, which was prolonged
for at least five minutes, during which time
the earl and his host both appeared to be
immersed in deep thought.

" Come," said Terwilliger at last. " Let
us go back to the drawing-room, or they'll
miss us, and, by-the-way, you might speak
of that little matter to Ariadne to-night.
It'll help the fall trade to have the engage-
ment announced."

"I will, Mr. Terwilliger," returned the
earl, as they started to leave the room ;
"but I say, father-in-law elect," he whis-
pered, catching TerwilligeFs coat sleeve and

92 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

drawing him back into the office for an in-
stant, " you couldn't let me have five pounds
on account this evening, could you ?"

Two minutes later Terwilliger and the
earl appeared in the drawing-room, the for-
mer looking haggard and worn, his eyes fe-
verishly bright, and his manner betraying
the presence of disturbing elements in his
nerve centres ; the latter smiling more affa-
bly than was consistent with his title, and
jingling a number of gold coins in his pock-
et, which his intimate friend and old college
chum. Lord Dufferton, on the other side of
the room, marvelled at greatly, for he knew
well that upon the earPs arrival at Bangle-
top Hall an hour before his pockets were
as empty as a flunky's head.

Terwilliger's time was almost up. The
hour for his interview with the spectre cook
of Bangletop was hardly forty-eight hours
distant, and he was wellnigh distracted. No

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 93

solution of the problem seemed possible
since the earl had so peremptorily declined
to fall in with his plan. He was glad the
earl had done so, for otherwise he would
have been denied the tremendous satisfac-
tion which the consummation of an alliance
between his own and one of the oldest and
noblest houses of England was about to
give him, not to mention the commercial
phase of the situation, which had been so
potent a factor in bringing the engagement
about ; for Ariadne had said yes to the earl
that same night, and the betrothal was short-
ly to be announced. It would have been
announced at once, only the earl felt that he
should break the news himself first to his
mother, the countess — an operation which
he dreaded, and for which he believed some
eight or ten weeks of time were necessary.

" What is the matter, Judson ?" Mrs. Ter-
williger asked finally, her husband was grow-
ing so careworn of aspect.

" Nothing, my dear, nothing."

" But there is something, Judson, and as
your wife I demand to know what it is.
Perhaps I can help you."

94 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

And then Mr. Terwilliger broke down,
and told the whole story to Mrs. Terwilli-
ger, omitting no detail, stopping only to
bring that worthy lady to on the half-dozen
or more occasions when her emotions were
too strong for her nerves, causing her to
swoon. When he had quite done, she
looked him reproachfully in the eye, and
said that if he had told her the truth in-
stead of deceiving her on the night of the
spectral visitation, he might have been
spared all his trouble.

"For you know, Judson," she said, "I
have made a study of the art of acquiring
titles. Since I read the story of the girl
who started in life as an innkeeper's daugh-
ter and died a duchess, by Elizabeth Har-
ley Hicks, of Salem, and realized how one
might be lowly born and yet rise to lofty
heights, it has been my dearest wish that
my girls might become noblewomen, and at
times, Judson, I have even hoped that you
might yet become a duke."

" Great Scott !" ejaculated Terwilliger.
" That would be awful. Hankinson, Duke
of Terwilliger ! Why, Molly, I'd never be

• • *

* i

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 97

able to hold up my head in shoe circles
with a name on me like that."

" Is there nothing in the world but shoes,
Judson ?" asked his wife, seriously.

"You'll find shoes are the foundation
upon which society stands," chuckled Ter-
williger in return.

"You are never serious," returned Mrs.
Terwilliger ; " but now you must be. You
are coping with the supernatural. Now I
have discovered," continued the lady, " that
there are three methods by which titles are
acquired— birth, marriage, and purchase."

"You forget the fourth — achievement,"
suggested Terwilliger.

" Not these days, Judson. It used to be
so, but it is not so now. Now the spectre
hasn't birth, we can't get any living duke to
marry her, dead dukes are hard to find, so
there's nothing to do but to buy her a title."

" But where ?"

" In Italy. You can get 'em by the doz-
en. Every hand-organ grinder in America
grinds away in the hope of going back to
Italy and purchasing a title. Why can't

you do the same ?"
7

98 THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

" Me ? Me grind a hand-organ in Amer-
ica?" cried Hankinson.

" No, no ; purchase a dukedom."

" I don't want a dukedom ; I want a duch-
essdom."

" That's all right. Buy the title, give it
to the cook, and let her marry some spectre
of her own rank ; she can give him the title ;
and there you are !"

" Good scheme !" cried Terwilliger. " But
I say, Molly, don't you think it would be43et-
ter to get her to bring the spectre over here,
and have me give him the title, and then let
him marry her here ?"

" No, I don't. If you give it to him first,
the chances are he would go back on his
bargain. He'd say that, being a duke, he
couldn't marry a cook."

"You have a large mind, Molly," said
Terwilliger.

" I know men !" snapped Mrs. Terwilliger.

And so it happened. Hankinson Judson
Terwilliger applied by wire to the authori-
ties in Rome for all right, title, and interest
in one dukedom, free from encumbrances,
irrevocable, and duly witnessed by the prop-

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP 99

er dignitaries of the Italian government, and
at the second interview with the spectre
cook of Bangletop, he was able to show her
a cablegram received from the Eternal City
stating that the papers would be sent upon
receipt of the applicant's check for one hun-
dred lire.

" 'Ow much his that ?" asked the ghost.

" One hundred lire ?" returned Terwilli-
ger, repeating the sum to gain time to think.
He was himself surprised at the cheapness
of the duchy, and he was afraid that if the
ghost knew its real value she would decline
to take it. " One hundred lire ? Why, that's
about 750,000 dollars — 150,000 pounds.
They charge high for their titles," he add-
ed, blushing slightly.

" Pretty 'igh," returned the ghost. " But
h'l carn't be a duke, ye know. 'Ow'll I
manidge that ?"

Hankinson explained his wife's scheme
to the spectre.

"That's helegant," said she. "HTVe
loved a butler o' the Bangletops for nigh
hon to two 'undred years, but, some'ow or
bother, he's kep' shy o' me. This '11 fix 'im.

lOO THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP

But h'l say, Mr. Terwilliger, his one o' them
Heyetalian dukes as good as a Henglish
one ?"

" Every bit," said Terwilliger. " A duke's
a duke the world over. Don't you know the
lines of Burns, * A duke's a duke for a' that 7"

" Never 'eard of 'im,'' replied the ghost.

" Well, you look him up when you get set-
tled down at home. He was a smart man
here, and, if his ghost does him justice,
you'll be mighty glad to know him," Ter-
williger answered.

And thus was Bangletop Hall delivered
of its uncanny visitor. The ducal appoint-
ment, entitling its owner to call himself
" Duke of Cavalcadi," was received in due
time, and handed over to the curse of the
kitchen, who immediately disappeared, and
permanently, from the haunts that had
known her for so long and so disadvan-
tageously. Bangletop Hall is now the
home of a happy family, to whom all are
devoted, and from whose mknage no cook
has ever been known to depart, save for
natural causes, despite all that has gone
before.

SACK TO THE SPIRIT VALB

> ^

6-«.

to •-

THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP IO3

Ariadne has become Countess of Mug-
ley, and Mrs. Terwilliger is content with
her Judson, whom, however, she occasion-
ally calls Duke of Cavalcadi, claiming
that he is the representative of that an-
cient and noble family on earth. As for
Judson, he always smiles when his wife
calls him Duke, but denies the titular im-
peachment, for he is on good terms with
his landlord, whose admiration for his ten-
ant's wholly unexpected ability to retain his
cook causes him to regard him as a super-
natural being, and therefore worthy of a
Bangletop's regard.

" All of which," Terwilliger says to Mrs.
Terwilliger, " might not be so, my dear, were
I really the duke, for I honestly believe that
if there is a feud of long standing anywhere
in the universe, it is between the noble fam-
ilies of Bangletop and Cavalcadi over on
the otheF shore."

THE SPECK ON THE LENS

"Talking about inventions," said the
oculist, as he very dexterously pocketed
two of the pool balls, the handsome ringer,
more familiarly known as the fifteen ball,
and the white ball itself, thereby adding
somewhat to the minus side of his string —
"talking about inventions, I had a curious
experience last August. It was an experi-
ence which was not only interesting from
an inventive point of view, but it had like-
wise a moral, which will become more or
less obvious as I unfold the story.

"You know I rented and occupied a place
in Yonkers last smnmer. It was situated on
the high lands to the north of the city, a
little this side of Greystone, overlooking
that magnificent stream, the Hudson, the
ever -varying beauties of which so few of
the residents along its banks really appreci-

THE SPECK ON THE LENS I05

ate. It was a comfortable spot, with a few
trees about it, a decent-sized garden — large
enough to raise a tomato or two for a Sun-
day-night salad — and a lawn which was a
cure for sore eyes, its soft, sheeny surface
affording a most restful object upon which
to feast the tired optic. I believe it was
that lawn that first attracted me as I drove
by the place with a patient I had in tow.
It was just after a heavy shower, and the
sun breaking through the clouds and light-
ing up the rain-soaked grass gave to it a
glistening golden greenness that to my eyes
was one of the most beautiful and soul-sat-
isfying bits of color I had seen in a long
time. *0h, for a summer of that !* I said to
myself, little thinking that the beginning of
a summer thereof was to fall to my lot be-
fore many days — ^for on May ist I signed
papers which made me to all intents and
purposes proprietor of the place for the en-
suing six months.

**At one corner of the grounds stood, I
should say, a dozen apple-trees, the spread-
ing branches of which seemed to form a
roof for a sort of enchanted bower, in which,

Io6 THE SPECK ON THE LENS

you may be sure, I passed many of my lei-
sure hour^, swinging idly in a hammock, the
cool breezes from the Hudson, concerning
which so many people are sceptical, but
which nevertheless exist, bringing delight
to the ear and nostril as well as to the
* fevered brow,' which is so fashionable in
the neighborhood of New York in the sum-
mer, making the leaves rustle in a tuneful
sort of fashion, and laden heavily with the
sweet odors of many a garden close over
which they passed before they got to me."

" Put that in rhyme, doctor, and there's
your poem," said the lieutenant, as he made
a combination scratch involving every ball
on the table.

" I'll do it," said the doctor ; " and then
I'll have it printed as Appendix J to the
third edition of my work on Sixty Astigma-
tisms, and How to Acquire Them. But to get
back to my story," he continued. " I was
lying there in my hammock one afternoon
trying to take a census of the butterflies in
sight, when I thought I heard some one
back of me call me by name. Instantly
the butterfly census was forgotten, and I

THE SPECK ON THE LENS 107

was on the alert; but — whether there was
•something the matter with my eyes or not,
I do not know — despite all my alertness,
there wasn't a soul in sight that I could
see. Of course, I was slightly mystified at
first, and then I attributed the interruption
either to imagination or to some passer-by,
whose voice, wafted on the breeze, might
have reached my ears. I threw myself
back into the hammock once more, and
was just about dozing off to the lullaby
sung by a bee to the accompaniment of the
rustling leaves, when I again heard my
name distinctly spoken.

"This time there was no mistake about
it, for as I sprang to my feet and looked
about, I saw coming towards me a man of
unpleasantly cadaverous aspect, whose years,
I should judge, were at least eighty in
number. His beard was so long and scant
that, to keep the breezes from blowing it
about to his discomfort, he had tucked the
ends of it into his vest pocket; his eyes,
black as coals, were piercing as gimlets,
their sharpness equalled by nothing that I
had ever seen, excepting perhaps the point

I08 THE SPECK ON THE LENS

of this same person's nose, which was long
and thin, suggesting a razor with a bowie
point; his slight body was clad in sombre
garb, and at first glance he appeared to me
so disquietingly like a visitor from the super-
natural world that I shuddered ; but when
he spoke, his voice was all gentleness, and
whatev^ of fear I had experienced was in a
moment dissipated.

" * You are Doctor Carey ?' he said, in a
timid sort of fashion.

" * Yes,' I replied ; * I am. What can I
do for you ?'

" * The distinguished oculist ?* he added,
as if not hearing my question.

"*Well, I'm a sort of notorious eye-doc-
tor,' I answered, my well-known modesty
preventing my entire acquiescence in his
manner of putting it.

" He smiled pleasantly as I said this, and
then drew out of his coat-tail pocket a small
tin box, which, until he opened it, I sup-
posed contained a drinking -cup — one of
those folding tin cups.

" * Doctor Carey,' said he, sitting down in
the hammock which I had vacated, and toy-

THE SPECK ON THE LENS I09

ing with the tin box — a proceeding that was
so extraordinarily cool that it made me
shiver — *I have been looking for you for
just sixty-three mortal years.*

"* Excuse me,' I returned, as nonchalantly
as I could, considering the fact that I was
beginning to be annoyed-^* excuse me, but
that statement seems to indicate that I was
born famous, which I'm inclined to doubt.
Inasmuch as I am not yet fifty years old, I
cannot understand how it has come to pass
that you have been looking for me for sixty-
three years.'

"* Nevertheless, my statement was cor-
rect,' said he. * I have been looking for
you for sixty-three years, but not for you as
you.i

" This made me laugh, although it added
slightly to my nervousness, which was now
beginning to return. To have a man with a
tin box in his hand tell me he had been
looking for me for thirteen years longer
than I had lived, and then to have him add
that it was not, however, me as myself that
he wanted, was amusing in a sense, and yet
I could not help feeling that it would be a

no THE SPECK ON THE LENS

relief to know that the tin box did hold a
drinking-cup, and not dynamite.

" * You seem to speak English,' I said, in
answer to this remark, * and I have always
thought I understood that language pretty
well, but you'll excuse me if I say that I
don't see your point.*

" * Why is it that great men are so fre-
quently obtuse?' he said, languidly, giving
the ground such a push with his toe that it
set the hammock swinging furiously. * When
I say that I have searched for you all these
years, but not for you as you, I mean not
for you as Dr. Carey, not for you as an in-
dividual, but for you as the possessor of a
very rare eye.*

" * Go on,' I said, feebly, and rubbed my
forehead, thinking perhaps my brains had
got into a tangle, and were responsible for
this extraordinary affair. * What is the pe-
culiar quality which makes my eye so rare ?*

" * There is only one pair of eyes like
them in the world, that I know of,* said the
stranger, *and I have visited all lands in
search of them and experimented with all
kinds of eyes.*

THE SPECK ON THE LENS III

" * And I am the proud possessor of that
pair ?' I queried, becoming slightly more in-
terested.

" * Not you/ said he. * You and I together
possess that pair, however.'

" * You and I ?' I cried.

" ' Yes,' said he. * Your left eye and my
right have the honor of being the only two
unique eyes in the world.'

" * That's queer too,' I observed, a mixt-
ure of sarcasm and flippancy in my tones,
I fear. * You mean twonique, don't you ?'

"The old gentleman drew himself up with
dignity, made a gesture of impatience, and
remarked that if I intended to be flippant
he would leave me. Of course I would not
hear of this, now that my curiosity had been
aroused, and so I apologized.

"* Don't mention it,' he said. *But, my
dear doctor, you cannot imagine my sen-
sations when I found your eye yester-
day.'

" * Oh ! You found it yesterday, did you ?'
I put in.

"*Yes,' he said. *0n Forty-third Street'

" ' I was on Forty-third Street yesterday,'

112 THE SPECK ON THE LENS

I replied, *but really I was not conscious of
the loss of my eye.*

" * Nobody said you had lost it,' said my
visitor. * I only said I had found it. I
mean by that that I found it as Columbus
found America. America was not neces-
sarily lost before it was found. I had the
good fortune to be passing through the
street as you left your club. I glanced into
your face as I passed, caught sight of your
eye, and my heart stood still. There at last
was that for which I had so long and so
earnestly searched, and so overcome was I
with joy at my discovery that I seemed to
lose all power of speech, of locomotion, or
of sane thought, and not until you had
passed entirely out of sight did I return
really to my senses. Then I rushed madly
into the club-house I had seen you leave a
few moments before, described you to the
man at the door, learned your name and
address, and — well, here I am.'

"*And what does all this extraordinary
nonsense lead up to V I asked. * What do
you intend to do about my eye ? Do you
wish to borrow it, buy it, or steal it ?'

THE SPECK ON THE LENS II3

" * Doctor Carey,* said my visitor, sadly,
* I shall not live very long. I have reason
to believe that another summer will find me
in my grave, and I do not want to die with-
out imparting to the world the news of a
marvellous discovery I have made — the de-
tails of a wonderful invention that I have
not only conceived, but have actually put
into working order. /, an unknown man —
too old to be able to refute the charge of
senility were any one disposed to question
the value of my statements — could announce
to the world my great discovery a thousand
times a day, and very properly the world
would decline to believe in me. The world
would cry humbug, and I should have been
unable, had I failed to find you, to convince
the world that I was not a humbug. With
the discovery of your eye, all that is changed.
I shall have an ally in you, and that is val-
uable for the reason that your statements,
whatever they may be, will always be en-
titled to and will receive respectful atten-
tion. Here in this box is my invention. I
shall let you discover its marvellous power
for yourself, hoping that when you have dis-

114 THE SPECK ON THE LENS

covered its power, you will tell the world of
it, and of its inventor/

"With that," said the doctor, "the old
fellow handed me the tin box, which I
opened with considerable misgivings as to
possible results. There was no explosion,
however. The cover came off easily enough,
and on the inside was a curiously shaped
telescope, not a drinking-cup, as I had at
first surmised.

" * Why, it's a telescope, isn't it ?' I said.

"*Yes. What did you suppose it was?'
he asked.

" * I hadn't an idea,' I replied, not exactly
truthfully. * But it can't be good for much
in this shape,' I added, for, as I pulled the
parts out and got it to its full length, I found
that each section was curved, and that the
whole formed an arc, which, though scarcely
perceptible, nevertheless should, it seemed
to me, have interfered with the utility of the
instrument.

" * That's the point I want you to establish
one way or the other,' said my visitor, get-
ting up out of the hammock, and pacing
nervously up and down the lawn. *To my

THE SPECK ON THE LENS II5

eye that telescope is a marvel, and is the re-
sult of years of experiment. It fulfils my
expectations, and if your eye is what I think
it is, I shall at last have found another to
whom it will appear the treasure it appears
to me to be. You have a tower on your
house, I see. Let us go up on the roof of
the tower, and test the glass. Then we
shall see if I claim too much for it.'

"The earnestness of the old gentleman
interested me hugely, and I led the way
through the garden to the house, up the
tower stairs to the roof, and then standing
there, looking across the river at the Pali-
sades looming up like a huge fortress be-
fore me, I put the telescope to my eye.

" * I see absolutely nothing,' I said, after
vainly trying to fathom the depths of the
instrument.

"* Alas!' began the old gentleman; and
then he laughed, nervously. *You are us-
ing the wrong eye. Try the other one. It
is your left eye that has the power to show
the virtues of this glass.'

" I obeyed his order, and then a most
singular thing happened. Strange sights

Il6 THE SPECK ON THE LENS

met my gaze. At first I could see nothing
but the Palisades opposite me, but in an
instant my horizon seemed to broaden, the
vista through the telescope deepened, and
before I knew it my sight was speeding,
now through a beautiful country, over fields,
hills, and valleys ; then on through great
cities, out to and over a broad, gently undu-
lating stretch which I at once recognized as
the prairie lands of the west. In a minute
more I began to catch the idea of this
wonderful glass, for I now saw rising up
before me the wonderful beauties of the
Yosemite, and then, like a flash of the
lightning, my vision passed over the Sierra
Nevada range, my eye swept down upon
San Francisco, and was soon speeding over
the waters of the Pacific.

"Two minutes later I saw the strange
pagodas of the Chinese rising before me.
Sweeping my glass to the north, bleak
Siberia met my gaze ; then to the south I
saw India, her jungles, her waste places.
Not long after, a most awful sight met my
gaze. I saw a huge ship at the moment of
foundering in the Indian Ocean. Horrified,

THE SPECK ON THE LENS II7

I turned my glass again to the north, and
the minarets of Stamboul rose up before
me ; then the dome of St. Peter's at Rome ;
then Paris ; then London ; then the Altantic
Ocean. I levelled my glass due west, and
finally I could see nothing but one small,
black speck — as like to a fleck of dust as to
anything else — on the lens at the other end.
With a movement of my hand, I tried to wipe
it off, but it still remained, and, in answer to
a chuckle at my side, I put the glass down.

"*It is the most extraordinary thing I
ever saw,' I said.

" * Yes, it is,' said the other.

" * One can almost see around the world
with it,' I cried, breathless nearly with en-
thusiasm.

" * One can — quite,' said the inventor,
calmly.

" * Nonsense !' I said. * Don't claim too
much, my friend.'

" * It is true,' said he. * Did you notice a
speck on the glass ? I am sure ydu did, for
you tried to remove it.'

" * Yes,' said I, * I did. But what of it ?
What does that signify ?'

Il8 THE SPECK ON THE LENS

"*It proves what I said/ he answered.
* You did see all the way around the world
with that glass. The black spot on the lens
that you thought was a piece of dust was
the back of your own head.'

" * Nonsense, my boy ! The back of my
head is bigger than that,' I said.

** * Certainly it is,' he responded ; * but
you must make some allowance for per-
spective. The back of your head is a trifle
less than twenty-four thousand miles from
the end of your nose the way you were look-
ing at it.' "

" You mean to say — " began the lieuten-
ant, as the doctor paused to chalk his cue.

" Never mind what I mean to say," said •
the doctor. " Reflect upon what I have
said."

" But the man and the telescope — what
became of them ?" asked the lieutenant.

" I was about to tell you that. The old
fellow who had made this marvellous glass,
which to two eyes that he knew of, and to
only two, would work as was desired, feel-
ing that he was about to die, had come to
me to offer the glass for sale on two con-

THE SPECK ON THE LENS II9

siderations. One was a consideration of
$25. The other was that I would leave no
stone unturned to discover a possible third
person younger than myself with an eye
similar to those we had, to whom at my
death the glass should be transmitted, ex-
acting from him the promise that he too
would see that it was passed along in the
same manner into the hands of posterity.
I was also to acquaint the world with the
story of the glass and the name of its in-
ventor to the fullest extent possible."

" And you, of course, accepted ?"

" I did," said the doctor ; " but having no
money in my pocket, I went down into the
house to borrow it of my wife, and upon my
return to the roof, found no trace of the
glass, the old man, or the roof either."

"What!" cried the lieutenant. "Are you
crazy ?"

" No," smiled the doctor. " Not at all.
For the moment I reached the roof of the
house, I opened my eyes, and found myself
still swinging in the hammock under the
trees."

"And the moral.**" queried the lieutenant.

I20 THE SPECK ON THE LENS

"You promised a moral, or I should not
have listened."

"Always have money in your pocket," re-
plied the doctor, pocketing the last ball, and
putting up his cue. " Then you are not apt
to lose great bargains such as I lost for the
want of $25."

" It's a good idea," returned the lieuten-
ant. " And you live up to it, I suppose ?"

" I do," returned the oculist, tapping his
pocket significantly. " Always !"

"Then," said the lieutenant, earnestly,
" I wish you'd lend me a tenner, for really,
doctor, I have gone clean broke."

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

I DO not assert that what I am about to
relate is in all its particulars absolutely true.
Not, understand me, that it is not true, but
I do not feel that I care to make an asser-
tion that is more than likely to be received
by a sceptical age with sneers of incredulity.
I will content myself with a simple narration
of the events of that evening, the memory
of which is so indelibly impressed upon my
mind, and which, were I able to do so, I
should forget without any sentiments of re-
gret whatsoever.

The affair happened on the night before
I fell ill of typhoid fever, and is about the
sole remaining remembrance of that imme-
diate period left to me. Briefly the story is
as follows :

Notwithstanding the fact that I was over-
worked in the practice of my profession — it

122 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

was early in March, and I was preparing my
contributions for the coming Christmas is-
sues of the periodicals for which I write —
I had accepted the highly honorable posi-
tion of Entertainment Committeeman at one
of the small clubs to which I belonged. I
accepted the office, supposing that the duties
connected with it were easy of performance,
and with absolutely no notion that the faith
of my fellow-committeemen in my judgment
was so strong that they would ultimately
manifest a desire to leave the whole pro-
gramme for the club's diversion in my hands.
This, however, they did; and when the
month of March assumed command of the
calendar I found myself utterly fagged out
and at my wits' end to know what style of
entertainment to provide for the club meet-
ing to be held on the evening of the 15th
of that month. I had provided already an
unusually taking variety of evenings, of
which one in particular, called the " Mar-
tyrs' Night," in which living authors writhed
through selections from their own works,
while an inhuman audience, every man of
whom had suffered even as the victims then

" MARTVRS" NIGHT

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 25

suffered, sat on tenscore of camp-stools puff-
ing the smoke of twenty-five score of free
cigars into their faces, and gloating over
their misery, was extremely successful, and
had gained for me among my professional
brethren the enviable title of " Machiavelli
Junior." This performance, in fact, was the
one now uppermost in the minds of the club
members, having been the most recent of
the series; and it had been prophesied by
many men whose judgment was unassail-
able that no man, not even I, could ever
conceive of anything that could surpass it.
Disposed at first to question the accuracy
of a prophecy to the effect that I was, like
most others of my kind, possessed of limi-
tations, I came finally- to believe that per-
haps, after all, these male Cassandras with
whom I was thrown were right. Indeed, the
more I racked liiy brains to think of some-
thing better* than the "Martyrs' Night,"
the more I became convinced that in that
achievement I had reached the zenith of
my powers. The thing for me to do now
was to hook myself securely on to the zenith
and stay there. But how to do it? That

126 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

was the question which drove sleep from my
eyes, and deprived me for a period of six
weeks of my reason, my hair departing im-
mediately upon the restoration thereof — a
not uncommon after-symptom of typhoid.

It was a typical March night, this one
upon which the extraordinary incident about
to be related took place. It was the kind
of night that novelists use when they are
handling a mystery that in the abstract
would amount to nothing, but which in the
concrete of a bit of wild, weird, and windy
nocturnalism sends the reader into hysterics.
It may be — I shall not attempt to deny it —
that had it happened upon another kind of
an evening — a soft, mild, balmy June even-
ing, for instance — my own experience would
have seemed less worthy of preservation in
the amber of publicity, but of that the reader
must judge for himself. The fact alone re-
mains that upon the night when my uncan-
ny visitor appeared, the weather department
was apparently engaged in getting rid of its
remnants. There was a large percentage
of withering blast in the general make-up
of the evening ; there were rain and snow.

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 27

which alternated in pattering upon my win-
dow-pane and whitening the apology for a
wold that stands three blocks from my flat
on Madison Square ; the wind whistled as
it always does upon occasions of this sort,
and from all corners of my apartment, after
the usual fashion, there seemed to come
sounds of a supernatural order, the effect of
which was to send cold chills off on their
regular trips up and down the spine of their
victim — in this instance myself/ I wish that
at the time the hackneyed quality of these
sensations had appealed to me. That it did
not do so was shown by the highly nervous
state in which I found myself as my clock
struck eleven. If I could only have realized
at that hour that these symptoms were the
same old threadbare premonitions of the ap-
pearance of a supernatural being, I should
have left the house and gone to the club,
and so have avoided the visitation then im-
minent. Had I done this, I should doubt-
less also have escaped the typhoid, since the
doctors attributed that misfortune to the
shock of my experience, which, in my then
wearied state, I was unable to sustain —

128 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

and what the escape of typhoid would have
meant to me only those who have seen the
bills of my physician and druggist for ser-
vices rendered and prescriptions compound-
ed are aware. That my mind unconsciously
took thought of spirits was shown by the
fact that when the first chill came upon me I
arose and poured out for myself a stiff bum-
per of old Reserve Rye, which I immediately
swallowed ; but beyond this I did not go. I
simply sat there before my fire and cud-
gelled my brains for an idea whereby my
fellow-members at the Gutenberg Club might
be amused. How long I sat there I do not
know. It may have been ten minutes ; it
may have been an hour — 1 was barely con-
scious of the passing of time — but I do
know that the clock in the Dutch Reformed
Church steeple at Twenty-ninth Street and
Fifth Avenue was clanging out the first
stroke of the hour of midnight when my
door-bell rang.

Theretofore — if I may be allowed the word
— the tintinnabulation of my door-bell had
been invariably pleasing unto me. I am
fond of company, and company alone was

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 29

betokened by its ringing, since my credit-
ors gratify their passion for interviews at
my office, if perchance they happen to find
me there. But on this occasion — I could
not at the moment tell why — its clanging
seemed the very essence of discord. It
jangled with my nervous system, and as it
ceased I was conscious of a feeling of irri-
tability which is utterly at variance with my
nature outside of business hours. In the
office, for the sake of discipline, I frequent-
ly adopt a querulous manner, finding it nec-
essary in dealing with office-boys, but the
moment I leave shop behind me I become
a different individual entirely, and have
been called a moteless sunbeam by those
who have seen only that side of my char-
acter. This, by-the-way, must be regarded
as a confidential communication, since I
am at present engaged in preparing a vest-
pocket edition of the philosophical works
of Schopenhauer in words of one syllable,
and were it known that the publisher had
intrusted the magnificent pessimism of that
illustrious juggler of words and theories to
a " moteless sunbeam " it might seriously

130 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

interfere with the sale of the work; and I
may say, too, that this request that my con-
fidence be respected is entirely disinterest-
ed, inasmuch as I declined to do the work
on the royalty plan, insisting upon the pay-
ment of a lump sum, considerably in ad-
vance.

But to return. I heard the bell rii)g with
a sense of profound disgust. I did not wish
to see anybody. My whiskey was low, my
quinine pills few in number ; my chills alone
were present in a profusion bordering upon
ostentation.

" ril pretend not to hear it," I said to
myself, resuming my work of gazing at the
flickering light of my fire — which, by-the-
way, was the only light in the room.

" Ting-a-ling-a-ling " went the bell, as if
in answer to my resolve.

" Confound the luck !" I cried, jumping
from my chair and going to the door with
the intention of opening it, an intention
however which was speedily abandoned, for
as I approached it a sickly fear came over
me — a sensation I had never before known
seemed to take hold of my being, and in-

i VOU HEAR THAT BOLT SUDE?"

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR I33

Stead of opening the door, I pushed the
bolt to make it the more secure.

"There's a hint for you, whoever you
are!" I cried. "Do you hear that bolt
slide, you ?" 1 added, tremulously, for from
the other side there came no reply — only a
more violent ringing of the. bell.

" See here !" I called out, as loudly as I
could, "who are you, anyhow What do you
want ?"

There was no answer, except from the
bell, which began again.

" Bell-wire's too cheap to steal !" I called
again. " If you want wire, go buy it ; don't
try to pull mine out. It isn't mine, any-
how. It belongs to the house."

Still there was no reply, only the clanging
of the bell ; and then my curiosity overcame
my fear, and with a quick movement I threw
open the door.

" Are you satisfied now ?" I said, angrily.
But I addressed an empty vestibule. There
was absolutely no one there, and then I sat
down on the mat and laughed. I never was
so glad to see no one in my life. But my
laugh was short-lived.

134 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

" What made that bell ring ?" I suddenly
asked myself, and then the feeling of fear
came upon me again. I gathered my some-
what shattered self together, sprang to my
feet, slammed the door with such force that
the corridors echoed to the sound, slid the
bolt once more, turned the key, moved a
heavy chair in front of it, and then fled like
a frightened hare to the sideboard in my din-
ing-room. There I grasped the decanter
holding my whiskey, seized a glass from the
shelf, and started to pour out the usual dram,
when the glass fell from my hand, and was
shivered into a thousand pieces on the hard-
wood floor; for, as I poured, I glanced
through the open door, and there in my
sanctum the flicker of a random flame di-
vulged the form of a being, the eyes of whom
seemed fixed on mine, piercing me through
and through. To say that I was petrified
but dimly expresses the situation. I was
granitized, and so I remained, until by a
more luminous flicker from the burning
wood I perceived that the being wore a
flaring red necktie.

" He is human," I thought ; and with the

• •'

• *

• •'

••; .».

• •

•• z

•I • •

• •

! • •

«> •

• •

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 137

thought the tension on my nervous system
relaxed, and I was able to feel a sufficiently
well-developed sense of indignation to de-
mand an explanation. "This is a mighty
cool proceeding on your part," I said, leav-
ing the sideboard and walking into the
sanctum.

" Yes," he replied, in a tone that made me
jump, it was so extremely sepulchral — a tone
that seemed as if it might have been ac-
quired in a damp corner of some cave off
the earth. " But it's a cool evening."

" I wonder that a man of your coolness
doesn't hire himself out to some refrigerat-
ing company," I remarked, with a sneer
which would have delighted the soul of Cas-
sius himself.

" I have thought of it," returned the be-
ing, calmly. " But never went any further.
Summer-hotel proprietors have always out-
bid the refrigerating people, and they in turn
have been laid low by millionaires, who have
hired me on occasion to freeze out people
they didn't like, but who have persisted in
calling. I must confess, though, my dear
Hiram, that you are not much warmer your-

138 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

self — this greeting is hardly what I ex-
pected."

" Well, if you want to make me warmer,"
I retorted, hotly, "just keep on calling me
Hiram. How the deuce did you know of
that blot on my escutcheon, anyhow ?" I
added, for Hiram was one of the crimes of
my family that I had tried to conceal, my
parents having fastened the name of Hiram
Spencer Carrington upon me at baptism for
no reason other than that my rich bachelor
uncle, who subsequently failed and became
a charge upon me, was sp named.

" I was standing at the door of the church
when you were baptized," returned the vis-
itor, " and as you were an interesting baby,
I have kept an eye on you ever since. Of
course I knew that you discarded Hiram as
soon as you got old enough to put away
childish things, and since the failure of your
uncle I have been aware that you desired to
be known as Spencer Carrington, but to me
you are, always have been, and always will
be, Hiram."

" Well, don't give it away," I pleaded. " I
hope to be famous some day, and if the

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR I39

American newspaper paragrapher ever got
hold of the fact that once in my life I was
Hiram, I'd have to Hiram to let me alone."

" That's a bad joke, Hiram," said the vis-
itor, "and for that reason I like it, though I
don't laugh. There is no danger of your
becoming famous if you stick to humor of
that sort."

" Well, rd like to know," I put in, my
anger returning — " I'd like to know who in
Brindisi you are, what in Cairo you want,
and what in the name of the seventeen
hinges of the gates of Singapore you are
doing here at this time of night ?"

" When you were a baby, Hiram, you had
blue eyes," said my visitor. " Bonny blue
eyes, as the poet says."

" What of it ?" I asked.

"This," replied my visitor. " If you have
them now, you can very easily see what I am
doing here. I am sitting down and talking
to you!'''

" Oh, are you ?" I said, with fine scorn.
" I had not observed that. The fact is, my
eyes were so weakened by the brilliance of
that necktie of yours that I doubt I could

I40 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

see anything — not even one of my own jokes.
It*s a scorcher, that tie of yours. In fact, I
never saw anything so red in my life."

" I do not see why you complain of my
tie," said the visitor. " Your own is just as
bad."

" Blue is never so withering as red," I re-
torted, at the same time caressing the scarf
I wore.

" Perhaps not — but — ah — if you will look
in the glass, Hiram, you will observe that
your point is not well taken," said my vis-k-
vis, calmly.

I acted upon the suggestion, and looked
upon my reflection in the glass, lighting a
match to facilitate the operation. I was
horrified to observe that my beautiful blue
tie, of which I was so proud, had in some
manner changed, and was now of the same
aggressive hue as was that of my visitor, red
even as a brick is red. To grasp it firmly in
my hands and tear it from my neck was the
work of a moment, and then in a spirit of
rage I turned upon my companion.

" See here," I cried, " IVe had quite
enough of you. I can't make you out, and

"I LOOKED UPON K

» •

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 43

I can't say that I want to. You know where
the door is — you will oblige me by putting it
to its proper use."

" Sit down, Hiram," said he, " and don't
be foolish and ungrateful. You are behav-
ing in a most extraordinary fashion, destroy-
ing your clothing and acting like a madman
generally. What was the use of ripping up
a handsome tie like that ?"

"I despise loud hues. Red is a jockey's
color," I answered.

"But you did not destroy the red tie,"
said he, with a smile. " You tore up your
blue one — look. There it is on the floor.
The red one you still have on."

Investigation showed the truth of my vis-
itor's assertion. That flaunting streamer of
anarchy still made my neck infamous, and
before me on the floor, an almost unrecog-
nizable mass of shreds, lay my cherished
cerulean tie. The revelation stunned me ;
tears came into my eyes, and trickling down
over my cheeks, fairly hissed with the fever-
ish heat of my flesh. My muscles relaxed,
and I fell limp into my chair.

"You need stimulant," said my visitor,

144 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

kindly. " Go take a drop of your Old Re-
serve, and then come back here to me. IVe
something to say to you."

" Will you join me ?" I asked, faintly.

" No,'* returned the visitor. " I am so
fond of whiskey that I never molest it. That
act which is your stimulant is death to the
rye. Never realized that, did you ?"

"No, I never did," I said, meekly.

" And yet you claim to love it. Bah !" he
said.

And then I obeyed his command, drained
my glass to the dregs, and returned. " What
is your mission- ?" I asked, when I had made
myself as comfortable as was possible under
the circumstances.

" To relieve you of your woes," he said.

" You are a homoeopath, I observe," said
I, with a sneer. " You are a homoeopath in
theory and an allopath in practice."

" I am not usually unintelligent," said he.
" I fail to comprehend your meaning. Per-
haps you express yourself badly."

" I wish you'd express yourself for Zulu-
land," I retorted, hotly. "What I mean is,
you believe in the similia similibus business.

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 47

but you prescribe large doses. I don't be-
lieve troubles like mine can be cured on
your plan. A man can't get rid of his stock
by adding to it."

"Ah, I see. You think I have added to
your troubles ?"

"I don't think so," I answered, with a
fond glance at my ruined tie. " I know so."

** Well, wait until I have laid my plan be-
fore you, and see if you won't change your
mind," said my visitor, significantly.

"All right." I said. "Proceed. Only
hurry. I go to bed early, as a rule, and it's
getting quite early now."

" It's only one o'clock," said the visitor,
ignoring the sarcasm. " But I will hasten,
as I've several other calls to make before
breakfast."

" Are you a milkman ?" I asked.

"You are flippant," he replied. "But,
Hiram," he added, "I have come here to
aid you in spite of your un worthiness. You
want to know what to provide for your club
night on the 15th. You want something
that will knock the ' Martyr's Night ' silly."

" Not exactly that," I replied. "I don't

148 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

want anything so abominably good as to
make all the other things I have done seem
failures. That is not good business."

" Would you like to be hailed as the dis-
coverer of genius? Would you like to be
the responsible agent for the greatest ex-
hibition of skill in a certain direction ever
seen ? Would you like to become the most
famous impresario the world has ever
known T

"Now," I said, forgetting my dignity
under the enthusiasm with which I was in-
spired by my visitor's words, and infected
more or less with his undoubtedly magnetic
spirit — " now you're shouting."

" I thought so, Hiram. I thought so, and
that's why I am here. I saw you on Wall
Street to-day, and read your difficulty at
once in your eyes, and I resolved to help
you. I am a magician, and one or two little
things have happened of late to make me
wish to prestidigitate in public. I knew you
were after a show of some kind, and I've
come to offer you my services."

" Oh, pshaw !" I said. " The members of
the Gutenberg Club are men of brains — not

ft •

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 151

children. Card tricks are hackneyed, and
sleight-of-hand shows pall."

" Do they, indeed ?" said the visitor.
" Well, mine won't. If you don't believe it,
I'll prove to you what I can do."

" I have no paraphernalia," I said.

" Well, I have," said he, and as he spoke,
a pack of cards seemed to grow out of my
hands. I must have turned pale at this un-
expected happening, for my visitor smiled,
and said :

" Don't be frightened. That's only one
of my tricks. Now choose a card," he added,
" and when you have done so, toss the pack
in the air. Don't tell me what the card is ;
it alone will fall to the floor."

" Nonsense !" said I. " It's impossible."

" Do as I tell you."

I did as he told me, to a degree only. I
tossed the cards in the air without choosing
one, although I made a feint of doing so.

Not a card fell hack to the floor. They
every one disappeared from view in the ceil-
ing. If it* had not been for the heavy chair
I had rolled in front of the door, I think I
should have fled.

152 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

" How's that for a trick ?" asked my vis-
itor.

I said nothing, for the very good reason
that my words stuck in my throat.

"Give me a little cr^me de menthe^ will
you, please ?" said he, after a moment's
pause.

" I haven't a drop in the house," I said,
relieved to think that this wonderful being
could come down to anything so earthly.

" Pshaw, Hiram !" he ejaculated, appar-
ently in disgust. "Don't be mean, and,
above all, don't lie. Why, man, you've got
a bottle full of it in your hand ! Do you
want it all ?"

He was right. Where it came from I do not
know; but, beyond question, the graceful,
slim-necked bottle was in my right hand, and
my left held a liqueur-glass of exquisite form.

" Say," I gasped, as soon as I was able to
collect my thoughts, " what are your terms ?"

"Wait a moment," he answered. "Let
me do a little mind-reading before we ar-
range preliminaries."

"I haven't much of a mind to read to-
night," I answered, wildly.

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 55

" You're right there," said he. " It's like
a dime novel, that mind of yours to-night.
But ril do the best I can with it. Suppose
you think df your favorite poem, and after
turning it over in your mind carefully for a
few minutes, select two lines from it, con-
cealing them, of course, from me, and I will
tell you what they are."

Now my favorite poem, I regret to say, is
Lewis Carroll's " Jabberwock," a fact I was
ashamed to confess to an utter stranger, so
I tried to deceive him by thinking of some
other lines. The effort was hardly success-
ful, for the only other lines I could call to
mind at the moment were from Rudyard
Kipling's rhyme, "The Post that Fitted,"
and which ran,

"Year by year, in pious patience, vengeful Mrs.
Boffin sits
Waiting for the Sleary babies to develop Sleary's
fits."

" Humph !" ejaculated my visitor. "You're
a great Hiram, you are."

And then rising from his chair and walk-
ing to my " poet's corner," the magician se-
lected two volumes.

156 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

" There," said he, handing me the Depart-
mental Ditties, "You'll find the lines you
tried to fool me with at the foot of page
thirteen. Look."

I looked, and there lay that vile Sleary
sentiment, in all the majesty of type, staring
me in the eyes.

"And here," added my visitor, opening
Alice in the Looking- Glass — "here is the
poem thq.t to your mind holds all the philos-
ophy of life :

** * Come to my arms, my beamish boy,
He chortled in his joy.'

» f»

I blushed and trembled. Blushed that
he should discover the weakness of my
taste, trembled at his power.

" I don't blame you for coloring," said
the magician. "But I thought you said
the Gutenberg was made up of men of
brains ? Do you think you could stay on
the rolls a month if they were aware that
your poetic ideals are summed up in the
*Jabberwock' and * Sleary's Fits'?"

" My taste might be far worse," I an-
swered.

It «

w % «

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 59

" Yes, it might. You might have stooped
to likyig some of your own verses. I ought
really to congratulate you, I suppose," re-
torted the visitor, with a sneering laugh.

This roused my ire again.

"Who are you, anyhow, that you come
here and take me to task?" I demanded,
angrily. "I'll like anything I please, and
without asking your permission. If I cared
more for the Peter kin Papers than I do for
Shakespeare, I wouldn't be accountable to
you, and that's all there is about it."

" Never mind who I am," said the visitor.
"Suffice to say that I am myself. You'll
know my name soon enough. In fact, you
will pronounce it involuntarily the first
thing when you wake in the morning, and
then — " Here he shook his head ominous-
ly, and I felt myself grow rigid with fright
in my chair. " Now for the final trick," he
said, after a moment's pause. "Think of
where you would most like to be at this
moment, and I'll exert my power to put
you there. Only close your eyes first."

I closed my eyes and wished. When I
opened them I was in the billiard-room of

l6o A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

the Gutenberg Club with Perkins and
Tompson.

" For Heaven's sake, Spencer," they said,
in surprise, " where did you drop in from ?
Why, man, you are as white as a sheet*
And what a necktie ! Take it off !"

"Grab hold of me, boys, and hold me
fast," I pleaded, falling on my knees in ter-
ror. " If you don't, I believe Til die."

The idea of returning to my sanctum was
intolerably dreadful to me.

" Ha ! ha !" laughed the magician, for
even as I spoke to Perkins and Tompson I
found myself seated opposite my infernal
visitor in my room once more. "They
couldn't keep you an instant with me sum-
moning you back."

His laughter was terrible ; his frown was
pleasanter ; and I felt myself gradually los-
ing control of my senses.

" Go," I cried. " Leave me, or you will
have the crime of murder on your con-
science."

" I have no con — " he began ; but I heard
no more.

That is the last I remember of that fear-

• •■

••• • *
•• • • • '

A MIDNIGHT VISITOR 1 63

ful night. I must have fainted, and then
have fallen into a deep slumber.

When I waked it was morning, and I was
alone, but undressed and in bed, uncon-
scionably weak, and surrounded by medi-
cine bottles of many kinds. The clock on
the mantle on the other side of the room
indicated that it was after ten o'clock.

^^ Great Beelzebub f'' I cried, taking note
of the hour. " I've an engagement with
Barlow at nine."

And then a sweet-faced woman, who, I
afterwards learned, was a professional nurse,
entered the room, and within an hour I real-
ized two facts. One was that I had lain ill
for many days, and that my engagement
with Barlow was now for six weeks unful-
filled ; the other, that my midnight visitor
was none other than —

And yet I don't know. His tricks cer-
tainly were worthy of that individual ; but
Perkins and Tompson assert that I never
entered the club that night, and surely if
my visitor was Beelzebub himself he would
not have omitted so important a factor of
success as my actual presence in the billiard-

164 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR

room on that occasion would have been ;
and, besides, he was altogether too cool to
have come from his reputed residence.

Altogether I think the episode most un-
accountable, particularly when I reflect that
while no trace of my visitor was discover-
able in my room the next morning, as my
nurse tells me, my blue necktie was in real-
ity found upon the floor, crushed and torn
into a shap>eless bundle of frayed rags.

As for the club entertainment, I am told
that, despite my absence, it was a wonderful
success, redeemed from failure, the treasurer
of the club said, by the voluntary services
of a guest, who secured admittance on one
of my cards, and who executed some sleight-
of-hand tricks that made the members trem-
ble, and whose mind-reading feats performed
on the club's butler n6t only made it neces-
sary for him to resign his office, but disclosed
to the House Committee the whereabouts
of several cases of rare wines that had mys-
teriously disappeared.

A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA

It was altogether queer, and Jingleberry
to this day does not entirely understand it.
He had examined his heart as carefully as
he knew how, and had arrived at the en-
tirely reasonable conclusion that he was in
love. He had every symptom of that mal-
ady. When Miss Marian Chapman was
within range of his vision there was room
for no one else there. He suffered from
that peculiar optical condition which en-
abled him to see but one thing at a time
when she was present, and she was that one
thing, which was probably the reason why
in his mind's eye she was the only woman
in the world, for Marian was ever present
before Jingleberry's mental optic. He had
also examined as thoroughly as he could in
hypothesis the heart of this " only woman,"
and he had — or thought he had, which
amounts to the same thing — reason to be-

l66 A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA

lieve that she reciprocated his affection.
She certainly seemed glad always when he
was about ; she called him by his first name,
and sometimes quarrelled with him as she
quarrelled with no one else, and if that
wasn't a sign of love in woman, then Jingle-
berry had studied the sex all his years —
and they were thirty-two — for nothing. In
short, Marian behaved so like a sister to
him that Jingleberry, knowing how dreams
and women go by contraries, was absolutely
sure that a sister was just the reverse from
that relationship which in her heart of hearts
she was willing to assume towards him, and
he was happy in consequence. Believing
this, it was not at all strange that he should
make up his mind to propose marriage to
her, though, like many other men, he was
somewhat chicken-hearted in coming to the
point. Four times had he called upon Ma-
rian for the sole purpose of asking her to
become his wife, and four times had he
led up to the point and then talked about
something else. What quality it is in man
that makes a coward of him in the presence
of one he considers his dearest friend is not

A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA 167

within the province of this narrative to de-
termine, but Jingleberry had it in its most
virulent form. He had often got so far
along in his proposal as " Marian — er — will
you — will you — /' and there he had as often
stopped, contenting himself with such com-
mon-place conclusions as " go to the matinee
with me to-morrow ?" or " ask your father for
me if he thinks the stock market is likely to
strengthen soon ?" and other amazing sub-
stitutes for the words he so ardently desired,
yet feared, to utter. But this afternoon —
the one upon which the extraordinary events
about to be narrated took place — Jingle-
berry had called resolved not to be balked
in his determination to learn his fate. He
had come to propose, and propose he would,
mat caelum. His confidence in a successful
termination to his suit had been reinforced
that very morning by the receipt of a note
from Miss Chapman asking him to dine
with her parents and herself that evening,
and to accompany them after dinner to the
opera. Surely that meant a great deal, and
Jingleberry conceived that the time was
ripe for a blushing "yes" to his long-

1 68 A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA

deferred question. So he was here in the
Chapman parlor waiting for the young lady
to come down and become the recipient
of the "interesting interrogatory," as it is
called in some sections of Massachusetts.

" I'll ask her the first thing/' said Jingle-
berry, buttoning up his Prince Albert, as
though to impart a possibly needed stiffen-
ing to his backbone. " She will say yes,
and then I shall enjoy the dinner and the
opera so ^luch the more. Ahem ! I wonder
if I am pale — I feel sort of — um — There's
a mirror. That will tell." Jingleberry
walked to the mirror — an oval, gilt-framed
mirror, such as was very much the vogue fifty
years ago, for which reason alone, no doubt,
it was now admitted to the gold- and -white
parlor of the house of Chapman.

" Blessed things these mirrors," said Jin-
gleberry, gazing at the reflection of his face.
" So reassuring. I'm not at all pale. Quite
the contrary. I'm red as a sunset. Good
omen that ! The sun is setting on my
bachelor days — and my scarf is crooked.
Ahr

The ejaculation was one of pleasure, for

A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA 1 69

pictured in the mirror Jingleberry saw the
form of Marian entering the room through
the portieres.

" How do you do, Marian ? been admir-
ing myself in the glass," he said, turning to
greet her. " I — er — "

Here he stopped, as well he might, for
he addressed no one. Miss Chapman was
nowhere to be seen.

" Dear me !" said Jingleberry, rubbing his
eyes in astonishment. " How extraordinary!
I surely thought I saw her — why, I did see
her — that is, I saw her reflection in the gla —
Ha ! ha ! She caught me gazing at myself
there and has hidden."

He walked to the door and drew the
portiere aside and looked into the hall.
There was no one there. He searched every
corner of the hall and of the dining-room at
its end, and then returned to the parlor, but
it was still empty. And then occurred the
most strangely unaccountable event in his
life.

As he looked about the parlor, he for the
second time found himself before the mir-
ror, but the reflection therein, though it was

170 A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA

of himself, was of himself with his back
turned to his real self, as he stood gazing
amazedly into the glass ; and besides this,
although Jingleberry was alone in the real
parlor, the reflection of the dainty room
showed that there he was not so, for seated
in her accustomed graceful attitude in the
reflected arm-chair was nothing less than
the counterfeit presentment of Marian Chap-
man herself.

It was a wonder Jingleberry's eyes did
not fall out of his head, he stared so. What
a situation it was, to be sure, to stand there
and see in the glass a scene which, as far
as he could observe, had no basis in reality ;
and how interesting it was for Jingleberry
to watch himself going through the form of
chatting pleasantly there in the mirror's
depths with the woman he loved ! It almost
made him jealous, though, the reflected
Jingleberry was so entirely independent of
the real Jingleberry. The jealousy soon
gave way to consternation, for, to the won-
dering suitor, the independent reflection was
beginning to do that for which he himself
had come. In other words, there was a pro-

A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA 17 1

posal going on there in the glass, and Jingle-
berry enjoyed the novel sensation of seeing
how he himself would look when passing
through a similar ordeal. Altogether, how-
ever, it was not as pleasing as most novel-
ties are, for there were distinct signs in the
face of the mirrored Marian that the mir-
rored Jingleberry's words were distasteful
to her, and that the proposition he was
making was not one she could entertain
under any circumstances. She kept shak-
ing her head, and the more she shook it,
the more the glazed Jingleberry seemed to
implore her to be his. Finally, Jingleberry
saw his quicksilver counterpart fall upon
his knees before Marian of the glass, and
hold out his arms and hands towards her in
an attitude of prayerful despair, whereupon
the girl sprang to her feet, stamped her left
foot furiously upon the floor, and pointed
the unwelcome lover to the door.

Jingleberry was fairly staggered. What
could be the meaning of so extraordinary a
freak of nature? Surely it must be pro-
phetic. Fate was kind enough to warn him
in advance, no doubt; otherwise it was a

172 A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA

trick. And why should she stoop to play
so paltry a trick as that upon him ? Surely
fate would not be so petty. No. It was a
warning. The mirror had been so affected
by some supernatural agency that it divined
and reflected that which was to be instead
of confining itself to what Jingleberry
called "simultaneity." It led instead of
following or acting coincidently with the
reality, and it was the part of wisdom, he
thought, for him to yield to its suggestion
and retreat; and as he thought this, he

heard a soft sweet voice behind him.

" I hope you haven't got tired of waiting,
Tom," it said; and, turning, Jingleberry
saw the unquestionably real Marian stand-
ing in the doorway.

" No," he answered, shortly. " I — I have
had a pleasant— very entertaining ten min-
utes ; but I — I must hurry along, Marian,"
he added. " I only came to tell you that I
have a frightful headache, and — er — I can't
very well manage to come to dinner or go
to the opera with you to-night."

"Why, Tom," pouted Marian, "I am aw-
fully disappointed ! I had counted on you,

A QUICKSILVER CASSANDRA 1 73

and now my whole evening will be spoiled.
Don't you think you can rest a little while,
and then come ?"

"Well, I — I want to, Marian," said Jin-
gleberry ; " but, to tell the truth, I — I really
am afraid I am going to be ill ; I've had
such a strange experience this afternoon.
I—"

" Tell me what it was," suggested Marian,
sympathetically; and Jingleberry did tell
her what it was. He told her the whole
story from beginning to end — what he had
come for, how he had happened to look in
the mirror, and what he saw there ; and
Marian listened attentively to every word
he said. She laughed once or twice, and
when he had done she reminded him that
mirrors have a habit of reversing everything ;
and somehow or other Jingleberry's head-
ache went, and — and — well, everything
went! »

THE GHOST CLUB

AN UNFORTUNATE EPISODE IN THE
LIFE OF NO. 5010

Number 5010 was at the time when I re-
ceived the details of this story from his
lips a stalwart man of thirty-eight, swart of
hue, of pleasing address, and altogether the
last person one would take for a convict
serving a term for sneak - thieving. The
only outer symptoms of his actual condi-
tion were the striped suit he wore, the style
and cut of which are still in vogue at Sing
Sing prison, and the closely cropped hair,
which showed off the distinctly intellectual
lines^ of his head to great advantage. He
was engaged in making shoes when I first
saw him, and so impressed was I with the
contrast between his really refined fe^tur^s
and grace of manner and those of his brut-
ish-looking companions, that I asked my

"50IO'*

I* •*
• * *■

••• •••

I •••

THE GHOST CLUB 1 77

guide who he was, and what were the cir-
cumstances which had brought him to Sing
Sing.

He pegs shoes like a gentleman," I said.
Yes," returned the keeper. " He's
werry troublesome that way. He thinks
he's too good for his position. We can't
never do nothing with the boots he makes."

"Why do you keep him at work in the
shoe department ?" 1 queried.

"We haven't got no work to be done in.
his special line, so we have to put him at
whatever we can. He pegs shoes less bad-
ly than he does anything else,"

" What was his special line ?"

" He was a gentleman of leisure travellin'
for his health afore he got into the toils o'
the law. His real name is Marmaduke
Fitztappington De Wolfe, of Pelhamhurst-
by- the -Sea, Warwickshire. He landed in
this country of a Tuesday, took to collectin'
souvenir spoons of a Friday^ was jugged
the same day, tried, convicted, and there
he sets. In for two years more."

" How interesting !" I said. " Was the
evidence against him conclusive ?"

178 THE GHOST CLUB

"Extremely. A half-dozen spoons was
found on his person."

" He pleaded guilty, I suppose ?"

"Not him. He claimed to be as inno-
cent as a new-born babe. Told a cock-and-
bull story about havin' been deluded by
spirits, but the judge and jury wasn't to be
fooled. They gave him every chance, too.
He even cabled himself, the judge did, to
Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea, Warwickshire, at
his own expense, to see if the man was an
impostor, but he never got no reply. There
was them as said there wasn't no such place
as Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea in Warwickshire,
but they never proved it."

"I should like very much to interview
him," said I.

"It can't be done, sir," said my guide.
" The rules is very strict."

" You couldn't — er — arrange an interview
for me," I asked, jingling a bunch of keys
in my pocket.

He must have recognized the sound, for
he colored and gruffly replied, " I has me
orders, and I obeys 'em."

" Just — er — add this to the pension fund,"

THE GHOST CLUB l8l

I put in, handing him a five-dollar bill.
"An interview is impossible, eh?"

" I didn't say impossible," he answered,
with a grateful smile. " I said against the
rules, but we has been known to make ex-
ceptions. I think I can fix you up."

Suffice it to say that he did "fix me up,"
and that two hours later 5010 and I sat
down together in the cell of the former, a
not too commodious stall, and had a pleas-
ant chat, in the course of which he told me
the story of his life, which, as I had sur-
mised, was to me, at least, exceedingly in-
teresting, and easily worth twice the amount
of my contribution to the pension fund under
the' management of my guide of the morning.

"My real name," said the unfortunate
convict, " as you may already have guessed,
is not 5010. That is an alias forced upon
me by the State authorities. My name is
really Austin Merton Surrennes."

" Ahem !" I said. " Then my guide erred
this morning when he told me that in reali-
ty you were Marmaduke Fitztappington De
Wolfe, of Pelhamhurst-by-the-Sea, Warwick-
shire?"

l82 THE GHOST CLUB

Number 5010 laughed long and loud.
"Of course he erred. You don't suppose
that I would give the authorities my real
name, do you. ? Why, man, I am a nephew !
I have an aged uncle — a rich millionaire
uncle — whose heart and will it would break
were he to hear of my present plight. Both
the heart and will are in my favor, hence
my tender solicitude for him. I am inno-
cent, of course — convicts always are, you
know — but that wouldn't make any differ-
ence. He'd die of mortification just the
same. It's one of our family traits, that.
So I gave a false name to the authorities,
and secretly informed my uncle that I was
about to set out for a walking trip across
the great American desert, requesting him
not to worry if he did not hear from me
for a number of years, America being in a
state of semi- civilization, to which mails
outside of certain districts are entirely un-
known. My uncle being an Englishman
and a conservative gentleman, addicted
more to reading than to travel, accepts the
information as veracious and suspects noth-
ing, and when I am liberated I - shall re-

THE GHOST CLUB . 1 83

turn to him, and at his death shall become
a conservative man of wealth myself. See?"

" But if you are innocent and he rich and
influential, why did you not appeal to him
to save you ?" I asked.

" Because I was afraid that he, like the
rest of the world, would decline to believe
my defence," sighed 5010. "It was a good
defence, if the judge had only known it, and
I'm proud of it."

"But ineffectual," I put in. "And so,
not good."

"Alas, yes! This is an incredulous age.
People, particularly judges, are hard-headed
practical men of affairs. My defence was
suited more for an age of mystical ten-
dencies. Why, will you believe it, sir, my
own lawyer, the man to whom I paid eigh-
teen dollars and seventy -five cents for
championing my cause, told me the defence
was rubbish, devoid even of literary merit.
What chance could a man have if his law-
yer even didn't believe in him ?"

"None," I answered, sadly. "And you
had no chance at all, though innocent ?"

" Yes, I had one, and I chose not to take

184 THE GHOST CLUB

it. I might have proved myself non compos
mentis ; but that involved my making a fool
of myself in public before a jury, and I
have too much dignity for that, I can tell
you. I told my lawyer that I should pre-
fer a felon's cell to the richly furnished flat
of a wealthy lunatic, to whJbh he replied,
* Then* all is lost !' And so it was. I read
my defence in court. The judge laughed,
the jury whispered, and I was convicted in-
stanter of stealing spoons, when murder it-
self was no further from my thoughts than
theft."

"But they tell me you were caught red-
handed," said I. "Were not a half-dozen
spoons found upon your person ?''

" In my hand," returned the prisoner.
" The spoons were in my hand when I was
arrested, and they were seen there by the
owner, by the police, and by the usual crowd
of small boys that congregate at such em-
barrassing moments, springing up out of
sidewalks, dropping down from the heavens,
swarming in from everywhere. I had no
idea there were so many small boys in the
world until I was arrested, and found my-

50IO BECOMES EXCITED

m* * I

to
W

<m «

THE GHOST CLUB 1 87

self the cynosure of a million or more inno-
cent blue eyes."

"Were they all blue -eyed?" I queried,
thinking the point interesting from a scien-
tific point of view, hoping to discover that
curiosity of a morbid character was always
found in connection with eyes of a specified
hue.

" Oh no ; I fancy not," returned my host.
" But to a man with a load of another fel-
low's spoons in 'his possession, and a pair
of handcuffs on his wrists, everything looks
blue."

" I don't doubt it," I replied. " But— er
— just how, now, could you defend yourself
when every bit of evidence, and — you will
excuse me for saying so — conclusive evi-
dence at that, pointed to your guilt ?"

" The spoons were a gift," he answered.

" But the owner denied that."

" I know it ; that's where the beastly part
of it all came in. They were not given to
me by the owner, but by a lot of mean, low-
down, practical-joke-loving ghosts."

Number 5010's anger as he spoke these
words was terrible to witness, and as he

1 88 THE GHOST CLUB

Strode up and down the floor of his cell and
dashed his arms right and left, I wished for
a moment that I was elsewhere. I should
not have flown, however, even had the cell
door been open and my way clear, for* his
suggestion of a supernatural agency in con-
nection with his crime whetted my curiosity
until it was more keen than ever, and I
made up my mind to hear the story to the
end, if I had to commit a crime and get my-
self sentenced to confinement in that prison
for life to do so.

Fortunately, extreme measures of this nat-
ure were unnecessary, for after a few mo-
ments Surrennes calmed down, and seating
himself beside me on the cot, drained his
water-pitcher to the dregs, and began.

" Excuse me for not offering you a drink,"
he said, " but the wine they serve her^
while moist is hardly what a connoisseur
would choose except for bathing purposes,
and I compliment you by assuming that you
do not wish to taste it."

" Thank you," I said. " I do not like to
take water straight, exactly. I always dilute
it, in fact, with a little of this."

THE GHOST CLUB 1 89

Here I extracted a small flask from my
pocket and handed it to him.

" Ah !" he said, smacking his lips as he
took a long pull at its contents, "that puts
spirit into a man."

" Yes, it does," I replied, ruefully, as I
noted that he had left me very little but the
flask ; " but I don't think it was necessary
for you to deprive me of all mine."

" No ; that is, you can't appreciate the
necessity unless you — er — you have suffered
in your life as I am suffering. You were
never sent up yourself?"

I gave him a glance which was all indig-
nation. "I guess not," I said. "I have led
a life that is above reproach."

" Good !" he replied. " And what a satis-
faction that is, eh ? I don't believe I'd be
able to stand this jail life if it wasn't for
my conscience, which is as clear and clean
as it would be if I'd never used it."

"Would you mind telling me what your
defence was ?" I asked.

" Certainly not," said he, cheerfully. " I'd
be very glad to give it to you. But you must
remember one thing — it is copyrighted."

190 THE GHOST CLUB

" Fire ahead !" I said, with a smile. " Til
respect your copyright. I'll give you a roy-
alty on what I get for the story."

"Very good/' he answered. " It was like
this. To begin, I must tell you that when
I was a boy preparing for college I had for
a chum a brilliant fun-loving fellow named
Hawley Hicks, concerning whose future ^va-
rious prophecies had been made. His moth-
er often asserted that he would be a great
poet ; his father thought he was born to be
a great general ; our head - master at the
Scarberry Institute for Young Gentlemen
prophesied the gallows. They were all
wrong; though, for myself, I think that if
he had lived long enough almost any one of
the prophecies might have come true. The
trouble was that Hawley died at the age of
twenty-three. Fifteen years elapsed. I was
graduated with high honors at Brazenose,
lived a life of elegant leisure, and at the
age of thirty -seven broke down in health.
That was about a year ago. My uncle,
whose heir and constant companion I was,
gave me a liberal allowance, and sent me
off to travel. I came to America, landed in

b » »

THE GHOST CLUB 1 93

New York early in September, and set about
winning back the color which had departed
from my cheeks by an assiduous devotion to
such pleasures as New York affords. Two
days after my arrival, I set out for an airing
at Coney Island, leaving my hotel at four
in the afternoon. On my way down Broad-
way I was suddenly startled at hearing my
name spoken from behind me, and appalled,
on turning, to see standing with outstretched
hands no less a person than my defunct
chum, Hawley Hicks."

" Impossible," said I.

" Exactly my remark," returned Number
5oio» " To which I added, * Hawley Hicks,
it can't be you !'

" * But it is me,* he replied.

" And then I was convinced, for Hawley
never was good on his grammar. I looked
at him a minute, and then I said, * But, Haw-
ley, I thought you were dead.'

" * I am,' he answered. * But why should
a little thing like that stand between
friends ?'

" * It shouldn't, Hawley,' I answered,

meekly ; * but it's condemnedly unusual, you
13

194 THE GHOST CLUB

know, for a man to associate even with his
best friends fifteen years after they've died
and been buried.'

" * Do you mean to say, Austin, that just
because I was weak enough once to suc-
cumb to a bad cold, you, the dearest friend
of my youth, the closest companion of my
school-d^ys, the partner of my childish joys,
intend to go back on me here in a strange
city?' •

" * Hawley,' I answered, huskily, * not a
bit of it. My letter of credit, my room at
the hotel, my dress suit, even my ticket to
Coney Island, are at your disposal ; but I
think the partner of your childish joys
ought f]rst to be let in on the ground-floor
of this enterprise, and informed how the
deuce you manage to turn up in New York
fifteen years subsequent to your obsequies.
Is New York the hereafter for boys of your
kind, or is this some freak of my imagina-
tion ?' "

"That was an eminently proper ques-
tion," I put in, just to show that while the
story I was hearing terrified me, I was not
altogether speechless.

THE GHOST CLUB 1 95

"It was, indeed," said 5010; "and Haw-
ley recognized it as such, for he replied at
once.

"* Neither,* said he. *Your imagination
is all right, and New York is neither heaven
nor the other place. The fact is, I^m spook-
ing, and I can tell you, Austin, it's just about
the finest kind of work there is. If you
could manage to shuffle off your mortal ©oil
and get in with a lot of ghosts, the way I
have, you'd be playing in great luck.'

"* Thanks for the hint, Hawley,' I said,
with a grateful smile; *but, to tell you the
truth, I do not find that life is entirely bad.
I get my three meals a day, keep my pocket
full of coin, and sleep eight hours every
night on a couch that couldn't be more de-
sirable if it were studded with jewels and
had mineral springs.'

" * That's your mortal ignorance, Austin,'
he retorted. ' * I lived long enough to ap-
preciate the necessity of being ignorant, but
your style of existence is really not to be
mentioned in the same cycle with mine.
You talk about three meals a day, as if that
were an ideal ; you forget that with the eat-

196 THE GHOST CLUB

ing your labor is just begun ; those meals
have to be digested, every one of 'em, and
if you could only understand it, it would
appall you to see what a fearful wear and
tear that act of digestion is. In my life
you are feasting all the tinie, but with no
need for digestion. You speak of money
in your pockets ; well, I have none, yet am
I the richer of the two. I don't need mon-
ey. The world is mine. If I chose to I
could pour the contents of that jeweller's
window into your lap in five seconds, but
cut bono ? The gems delight my eye quite
as well where they are ; and as for travel,
Austin, of which you have always been fond,
the spectral method beats all. Just watch
mer

" I watched him as well as I could for a
minute," said 5010; "and then he disap-
peared. In another minute he was before
me again.

" * Well,' I said, * I suppose you've been
around the block in that time, eh ?'

" He roared with laughter. * Around the
block?' he ejaculated. 'I have done the
Continent of Europe, taken a run through

« • t>

THE GHOST CLUB 199

China, haunted the Emperor of Japan, and
sailed around the Horn since I left you a
minute ago.'

"He was a truthful boy in spite of his
peculiarities, Hawley was," said Surrennes,
quietly, " so I had to believe what he said.
He abhorred lies."

" That was pretty fast travelling, though,"
said I. " He'd make a fine messenger-boy."

"That's so. I wish Td suggested it to
him," smiled my host. " But I can tell you,
sir, I was astonished. ' Hawley,' I said,
*you always were a fast youth, but I never
thought you would develop into this. I
wonder you're not out of breath after such
a journey.'

• " * Another point, my dear Austin, in favor
of my mode of existence. We spooks have
no breath to begin with. Consequently, to
get out of it is no deprivation. But, I say,'
he added, * whither are you bound ?'

" * To Coney Island to see the sights,' I
replied. * Won't you join me ?' •

" * Not I,' he replied. * Coney Island is
tame. When I first joined the spectre band,
it seemed to me that nothing could delight

200 THE GHOST CLUB

me more than an eternal round of gay-
ety like that ; but, Austin, I have changed.
I have developed a good deal since you and
I were parted at the grave.'

" * I should say you had,' I answered. * I
doubt if many of your old friends would
know you.'

" * You seem to have had difficulty in so
doing yourself, Austin,' he replied, regret-
fully j * but see here, old chap, give up
Coney Island, and spend the evening with
me at the club. You'll have a good time,
I can assure you.'

" * The club ?' I said. * You don't mean
to say you visions have a club ?'

" * I do indeed ; the Ghost Club is the
most flourishing association of choice spirits
in the world. We have rooms in every city
in creation ; and the finest part of it is
there are no dues to be paid. The member-
ship list holds some of the finest names in
history — Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Na-
poleon Bonaparte, Caesar, George Washing-
ton, Mozart, Frederick the Great, Marc An-
tony— Cassius was black-balled on Caesar's
account — Galileo, Confucius.'

2
o

o
o

•5

o
ft

H
H

•• •

• • •

• ••

'•*

THE GHOST CLUB 203

"*You admit the Chinese, eh?' I
queried.

"*Not always/ he replied. * But Con
was such a good fellow they hadn't the
heart to keep him out; but you see, Austin,
what a lot of fine fellows there are in it'

"* Yes, it's a magnificent list, and I should
say they made a pretty interesting set of
fellows to hear talk,' I put in.

** * Well, rather,' Hawley replied. * I wish
you could have heard a debate between
Shakespeare and Caesar on the resolution,
" The Pen is mightier than the Sword ;" it
was immense.'

" * I should think it might have been,' I
said. * Which won ?'

" * The sword party. They were the best
fighters ; though on the merits of the argu-
ment Shakespeare was 'way ahead.'

" * If I thought I'd stand a chance of see-
ing spooks like that, I think I'd give up
Coney Island and go with you,' I said.

" * Well,' replied Hawley, * that's just the
kind of a chance you do stand. They'll all
be there to-night, and as this is ladies' day,
you might meet Lucretia Borgia, Cleopatra,

204 THE GHOST CLUB

and a few other feminine apparitions of
considerable note/

" * That settles it. I am yours for the
rest of the day,' I said, and so we adjourned
to the rooms of the Ghost Club.

"These rooms were in a beautiful house
on Fifth Avenue ; the number of the house
you will find on consulting the court rec-
ords. I have forgotten it. It was a large,
broad, brown-stone structure, and must have
been over one hundred and fifty feet in
depth. Such fittings I never saw before ;
everything was in the height of luxury, and
I am quite certain that among beings to
whom money is a measure of possibility no
such magnificence is attainable. The paint-
ings on the walls were by the most famous
artists of our own and other days. The
rugs on the superbly polished flcjrs were
worth fortunes, not only for their exquisite
beauty, but also for their extreme rarity.
In keeping with these were the furniture
and brie -k- brae. In short, my dear sir,
I had never dreamed of anything so daz-
zlingly, so superbly magnificent as that
apartment into which I was ushered by

:%•

• •

THE GHOST CLUB 207

the ghost of my {cipoadariv friend Hawley
Hicks.

"At first I was speechless with wonder,
which seemed to amuse Hicks very much."

" * Pretty fine, eh ?' he said, with a short
laugh. .

" * Well,' I replied, in a moment, * consid-
ering that you can get along without money,
and that all the resources of the world are
at your disposal, it is not more than half
bad. Have you a library?'

" I was always fond of books," explained
5010 in parenthesis to me, "and so was
quite anxious to see what the club of ghosts
could show in the way of literary treasures.
Imagine my surprise when Hawley informed
me that the club had no collection of the
sort to appeal to the bibliophile.

"*No,' he answered, *we have no libra-
ry.'

" * Rather strange,' I said, * that a club to
which men like Shakespeare, Milton, Edgar
Allan Poe, and other deceased literati be-
long should be deficient in that respect.'

" * Not at all,' said he. * Why should we
want books when we have the men them-

2o8 THE GHOST CLUB

selves to tell their tales to us ? Would you
give a rap to possess a set of Shakespeare if
William himself would sit down and rattle
off the whole business to you any time you
chose to ask him to do it ? Would you fol-
low Scott's printed narratives through their
devious and tedious periods if Sir Walter in
spirit would come to you on demand, and
tell you all the old stories over again in a
tenth part of the time it would take you to
read the introduction to one of them ?'
" * I fancy not,' I said. * Are you in such

luck r

" * 1 am,' said Hawley ; ' only personally I
never send for Scott or Shakespeare. I pre-
fer something lighter than either — Douglas
Jerrold or Marryat. But best of all, I like
to sit down and hear Noah swap animal
stories with Davy Crockett. Noah's the
brightest man of his age in the club. Adam's
kind of slow.'

" * How about Solomon ?' I asked, more
to be flippant than with any desire for in-
formation. I was much amused to hear
Hawley speak of these great spirits as if he
and they were chums of long standing.

♦.^-v

••

to tf

«>

« ■

-»-

THE GHOST CLUB 211

"* Solomon has resigned from the club,'
he said, with a sad sigh. * He was a good
fellow, Solomon was, but he thought he
knew it all until old Doctor Johnson got
hold of him, and then he knuckled under.
It's rather rough for a man to get firmly es-
tablished in his belief that he is the wisest
creature going, and then, after a couple of
thousand years, have an Englishman come
along and tell him things he never knew be-
fore, especially the way Sam Johnson de-
livers himself of his opinions. Johnson
never cared whom he hurt, you know, and
when he got after Solomon, he did it with
all his might.' "

" I wonder if Boswell was there ?" I vent-
ured, interrupting 5010 in his extraordinary
narrative for an instant.

"Yes, he was there," returned the pris-
oner. " I met him later in the evening ; but
he isn't the spook he might be. He never
had much spirit anyhow, and when he died
}ie had to leave his nose behind him, and
that settled him."

" Of course," I answered. " Boswell with
no nose to stick into other people's affairs

212 THE GHOST CLUB

would have been like Othello with Desde-
mona left out. But go on. What did you
do next?"

"Well," 5010 resumed, "after I'd looked
about me, and drunk my fill of the magnifi-
cence on every hand, Hawley took me into
the music-room, and introduced me to Mo-
zart and Wagner and a few other great com-
posers. In response to my request, Wagner
played an impromptu version of 'Daisy
Beir on the organ. It was great; not
much like 'Daisy Bell,* of course; more
like a collision between a cyclone and a
simoom in a tin-plate mining camp, in fact,
but, nevertheless, marvellous. I tried to
remember it afterwards, and jotted down a
few notes, but I found the first bar took up
seven sheets of fool's-cap, and so gave it up.
Then Mozart tried his hand on a banjo for
my amusement, Mendelssohn sang a half-
dozen of his songs without words, and then
Gottschalk played one of Poe's weird stories
on the piano.

"Then Carlyle came in, and Hawley in-
troduced me to him. He was a gruff old
gentleman, and seemingly anxious to have

WAITING FOR THB C

to ft ^ b

THE GHOST CLUB 215

Froude become an eligible, and I judged
from the rather fierce manner in which he
handled a club he had in his hand, that
there were one or two other men of promi-
nence still living he was anxious to meet.
Dickens, too, was desirous of a two-minute
interview with certain of his at present
purely mortal critics ; and, between you and
me, if the wink that Bacon gave Shake-
speare when I spoke of Ignatius Donnelly
meant anything, the famous cryptogram-
marian will do well to drink a bottle of the
elixir of life every morning before breakfast,
and stave off dissolution as long as he can.
There's no getting around the fact, sir,"
Surrennes added, with a significant shake
of the head, "that the present leaders of
literary thought with critical tendencies are
going to have the hardest kind of a time
when they cross the river and apply for ad-
mission to the Ghost Club, /don't ask for
any better fun than that of watching from a
safe distance the initiation ceremonies of
the next dozen who go over. And as an
Englishman, sir, who thoroughly believes in
and admires Lord Wolseley, if I were out of

2l6 THE GHOST CLUB

jail and able to do it, Td write him a letter,
and warn him that he would better revise
his estimates of certain famous soldiers no
longer living if he desires to find rest in that
mysterious other world whither he must
eventually betake himself. They've got
their swords sharpened for him, and he'll dis-
cover an instance when he gets over there
in which the sword is mightier than the pen.

"After that, Hawley took me up-stairs
and introduced me to the spirit of Napoleon
Bonaparte, with whom I passed about twen-
ty-five minutes talking over his victories and
defeats. He told me he never could under-
stand how a man like Wellington came to
defeat him at Waterloo, and added that he
had sounded the Iron Duke on the subject,
and found him equally ignorant.

"So the afternoon and evening passed.
I met quite a number of famous ladies —
Catherine, Marie Louise, Josephine, Queen
Elizabeth, and others. Talked architecture
with Queen Anpe, and was surprised to learn
that she never saw a Queen Anne cottage.
I took Peg Woffington down to supper, and
altogether had a fine time of it."

THE GHOST CLUB 219

" But, my dear Surrennes," I put in at this
point, " I fail to see what this has to do with
your defence in your trial for stealing spoons."

"I am coming to that," said 5010, sadly.
" I dwell on the moments passed at the club
because they were the happiest of my life,
and am loath to speak of what followed, but
I suppose I must. It was all due to Queen
Isabella that I got into trouble. Peg Wof-
fington presented me to Queen Isabella in
the supper -room, and while her majesty
and I were talking, I spoke of how beautiful
everything in the club was, and admired es-
pecially a half-dozen old Spanish spoons
upon the side -board. When I had done
this, the Queen called to Ferdinand, who
was chattihg with Columbus on the other
side of the room, to come to her, which he
did with alacrity. I was presented to the
King, and then my troubles began.

" * Mr. Surrennes admires our spoons,
Ferdinand,' said the Queen.

"The King smiled, and turning to me
observed, * Sir, they are yours. Er — waiter,
just do these spoons up and give them to
Mr, Surrennes.'

220 THE GHOST CLUB

"Of course," said 5010, "I protested
against this; whereupon the King looked
displeased.

" * It is a rule of our club, sir, as well as
an old Spanish custom, for us to present to
our guests anything that they may happen
openly to admire. You are surely sufficient-
ly well acquainted with the etiquette of club
life to know that guests may not with pro-
priety decline to be governed by the regula-
tions of the club whose hospitality they are
enjoying.'

" * I certainly am aware of that, my dear
King,' I replied, *and of course I accept
the spoons with exceeding deep gratitude.
My remonstrance was prompted solely by
my desire to explain to you that I was un-
aware of any such regulation, and to assure
you that when I ventured to inform your
good wife that the spoons had excited my
sincerest admiration, I. was not hinting that
it would please me greatly to be accounted
their possessor.'

" * Your courtly speech, sir,' returned the
King, with a low bow, * is ample assurance
of your sincerity, and I beg that you will

THE GHOST CLUB 223

put the spoons in your pocket and say no
more. They are yours. Verb, sap,''

" I thanked the great Spaniard and said
no more, pocketing the spoons with no little
exultation, because, having always been a
lover of the quaint and beautiful, I was
glad to possess such treasures, though I
must confess to some misgivings as to the
possibility of their being unreal. Shortly
after this episode I looked at my watch and
discovered that it was getting well on tow-
ards eleven o'clock, and I sought out Hawley
for the purpose of thanking him for a de-
lightful evening and of taking my leave. I
met him in the hall talking to Euripides on
the subject of the amateur stage in the
United States. What they said I did not
stop to hear, but offering my hand to Haw-
ley informed him of my intention to depart.

" 'Well, old chap,' he said, affectionately,
* I'm glad you came. It's always a pleasure
to see you, and I hope we may meet again
some time soon.' And then, catching sight
of my bundle, he asked, *What have you
there ?'

"I informed him of the episode in the

224 THE GHOST CLUB

supper-room, and fancied I perceived a look
of annoyance on his countenance.

" * I didn't want to take them, Hawley,' I
said; * but Ferdinand insisted/

"*Oh, it's all right!' returned Hawley.
* Only I'm sorry ! You'd better get along
home with them as quickly as you can and
say nothing; and, above all, don't try to
sell them.'

" * But why ?' I asked. * I'd much prefer
to leave them here if there is any question
of the propriety of my — '

"Here," continued 5010, "Hawley seem-
ed to grow impatient, for he stamped his
foot angrily, and bade me go at once or
there might be trouble. I proceeded to
obey him, and left the house instanter, slam-
ming the door somewhat angrily behind me.
Hawley's unceremonious way of speeding
his parting guest did not seem to me to be
exactly what I had a right to expect at the
time. I see now what his object was, and
acquit him of any intention to be rude,
though I must say if I ever catch him again,
I'll wring an explanation from him for hav-
ing introduced me into such bad company.

THE GHOST CLUB 225

"As I walked down the steps," said 5010,
"the chimes of the neighboring church
were clanging out the hour of eleven. I
stopped on the last step to look for a pos-
sible hansom-cab, when a portly gentleman
accompanied by a lady started to mount
the stoop. The man eyed me narrowly for
a moment, and then, sending the lady up
the steps, he turned to me and said,

" * What are you doing here ?'

" * IVe just left the club,' I answered.
* It's all right. I was Hawley Hicks's guest.
Whose ghost are you ?'

" * What the deuce are you talking about ?'
he asked, rather gruffly, much to my sur-
prise and discomfort.

" * I tried to give you a civil answer to
your question,' I returned, indignantly.

" * I guess you're crazy — or a thief,' he
rejoined.

" * See here, friend,' I put in, rather im-
pressively, *just remember one thing. You
are talking to a gentleman, and I don't take
remarks of that sort from anybody, spook
or otherwise. I don't care if you are the
ghost of the Emperor Nero, if you give me

226 THE GHOST CLUB

any more of your impudence Til dissipate
you to the four quarters of the universe —
see?'

" Then he grabbed me and shouted for the
police, and I was painfully surprised to find
that instead of coping with a mysterious
being from another w6rld, I had two hun-
dred and ten pounds of flesh and blood to
handle. The populace began to gather.
The million and a half of small boys of
whom I have already spoken — mostly
street gamins, owing to the lateness of
the hour — sprang up from all about us.
Hansom-cab drivers, attracted by the noise
of our altercation, drew up to the sidewalk
to watch developments, and then, after the
usual fifteen or twenty minutes, the blue-
coat emissary of justice appeared.

" * Phat's dthis ?* he asked.

" * I have detected this man leaving my
house in a suspicious manner,' said my ad-
versary. * I have reason to suspect him of
thieving.'

" * Your house !' I ejaculated, with fine
scorn. *rve got you there; this is the
house of the New York Branch of the Ghost

THE GHOST CLUB 227

Club. If you want it proved,' I added, turn-
ing to the policeman, * ring the bell, and ask.'

"*Oi t'ink dthat's a fair prophosition,'
observed the policeman. 'Is the motion
siconded ?'

" * Oh, come now T cried my captor. * Stop
this nonsense, or I'll report you to the de-
partment. This is my house, and has been
for twenty years. I want this man searched.'

" * Oi hov no warrant permithin' me to
invistigate the contints ov dthe gintlemon's
clothes,' returned the intelligent member of
the force. * But av yez '11 take yer solemn
alibi dthat yez hov rayson t' belave the gin-
tlemon has worked ony habeas corpush busi-
ness on yure propherty, oi'll jug dthe blag-
yard.'

"*I'll be responsible,' said the alleged
owner of the house. * Take him to the sta-
tion.'

" * J Tefuse to move,' I said.

"* Oi'll not carry yez,' said the police-
man, *and oi'd advoise ye to furnish yure
own locomotion. Av ye don't, oi'll use me
club. Dthot's th' ounly waa yez '11 git dthe
ambulanch.'

228 THE GHOST CLUB

" * Oh, well, if you insist,^ I replied, * of
course I'll go. I have nothing to fear.*

"You see," added 5010 to me, in paren-
thesis, " the thought suddenly flashed across
my mind that if all was as my captor said,
if the house was really his and not the
Ghost Club's, and if the whole thing was
only my fancy, the spoons themselves would
turn out to be entirely fanciful ; so I was all
right — or at least I thought I was. So we
trotted along to the police station. On the
way I told the policeman the whole story,
which impressed him so that he crossed
himself a half-dozen times, and uttered
numerous ejaculatory prayers — *Maa dthe
shaints presharve us,' and * Hivin hov mer-
shy,' and others of a like import.

***Waz dthe ghosht ov Dan O'Connell
dthere ?' he asked.

"Yes,' I replied. *I shook hands with
it.'

" * Let me shaak dthot hand,' he said, his
voice trembling with emotion, and then he
whispered in my ear : * Oi belave yez to be
innoshunt ; but av yez ain't, for the love of
Dan, oi'll let yez es/tcape,^

' ' LET MB SHAAK DTHOT

•>«« k

to
to

to
_to

^ THE GHOST CLUB 23 1

" ' Thanks, old fellow,' I replied. * But I am
innocent of wrong- doing, as I can prove.*

" Alas 1" sighed the convict, " it was not
to be so. When I arrived at the station-
house, I was dumfounded to learn that the
spoons "were all too real. I told my story
to the sergeant, and pointed to the mono-
gram, *G. C.,' on the spoons as evidence
that my story was correct ; but even that
told against me, for the alleged owner's
initials were G. C. — his name I withhold —
and the monogram only served to substan-
tiate his claim to the spoons. Worst of all,
he claimed that he had been robbed on sev-
eral occasions before this, and by midnight
I found myself locked up in a dirty cell to
await trial.

" I got a lawyer, and, as I said befote,
even he declined to believe my story, and
suggested the insanity dodge. Of course I
wouldn't agree to that. I tried to get him
to subpoena Ferdinand and Isabella and
Euripides and Hawley Hicks in my behalf,
and all he'd do was to sit there and shake
his head at me. Then I suggested going
up to the Metropolitan Opera-house some

232 THE GHOST CLUB ,

fearful night as the clock struck twelve, and
try to serve papers on Wagner's spook — ^all
of which he treated as unworthy of a mo-
ments consideration. Then I was tried,
convicted, and sentenced to live in this
beastly hole ; but I have one strong hope to
buoy me up, and if that is realized, I'll be
free to-morrow morning."

" What is that ?" I asked.

" Why," he answered, with a sigh, as the
bell rang summoning him to his supper —
"why, the whole horrid business has been
so weird and uncanny that I'm beginning
to believe it's all a dream. If it is, why, I'll
wake up, and find myself at home in bed ;
that's all. I've clung to that hope for nearly
a year now, but it's getting weaker every
minute."

" Yes, 5010," I answered, rising and shak-
ing him* by the hand in parting; "that's a
mighty forlorn hope, because I'm pretty
wide awake myself at this moment, and
can't be a part of your dream. The great
pity is you didn't try the insanity dodge."

" Tut !" he answered. " That is the last
resource of a weak mind."

A PSYCHICAL PRANK

Willis had met Miss Hollister but once,
and that, for a certain purpose, was suffi-
cient. He was smitten. She represented
in every way his ideal, although until he
had met her his ideal had been something
radically different. She was not at all
Junoesque, and the maiden of his dreams
had been decidedly so. She had auburn
hair, which hitherto Willis had detested.
Indeed, if the same hirsute wealth had
adorned some other woman's head, Willis
would have called it red. This shows how
completely he was smitten. She changed
his point of view entirely. She shattered
his old ideal and set herself up in its stead,
and she did most of it with a smile.

There was something, however, about
Miss Hollister's eyes ' that contributed to

234 A PS^XHICAL PRAXK

the smiting of Willis's heart. They were
great round lustrous orbs, and deep. So
deep were they and so penetrating that
Willis's affections were away beyond their
own depth the moment Miss Hollister^s
eyes looked into his, and at the same time
he had a dim and slightly uncomfortable
notion that she could read every thought
his mind held within its folds — or rather,
that she could see how utterly devoid of
thought that mind was upon this ecstatic
occasion, for Willis's brain was set all agog
by the sensations of the moment

" By Jove !" he said to himself afterwards
— ^for Willis, wise man that he could be on
occasions, was his own confidant, to the
exclusion of all others — "by Jove! I be-
lieve she can peer into my very soul ; and if
she can, my hopes are blasted, for she must
be able to see that a soul like mine is no
more worthy to become the affinity of one
like hers than a mountain rill can hope to
rival the Amazon."

Nevertheless, Willis did hope.

" Something may turn up, and perhaps —
perhaps I can devise some scheme by means

A PSYCHICAL PRANK 235

of which my imperfections can be hidden
from her. Maybe I can put stained glass
over the windows of my soul, and keep her
from looking through them at my short-
comings. Smoked glasses, perhaps — and
why not? If smoked glasses can be used
by mortals gazing at the sun, why may they
not be used by me when gazing into those
scarcely less glorious orbs of hers ?"

Alas for Willis ! The fates were against
him. A far-off tribe of fates were in league
to blast his chances of success forever, and
this was how it happened :

Willis had occasion one afternoon to come
up town early. At the corner of Broadway
and Astor Place he entered a Madison Ave-
nue car, paid his fare, and sat down in one
of the corner seats at the rear end of the
car. His mind was, as usual, intent upon
the glorious Miss HoUister. Surely no one
who had once met her could do otherwise
than think of her constantly, he reflected ;
and the reflection made him a bit jealous.
What business had others to think of her.^
Impertinent, grovelling mortals! No man
was good enough to do that — no, not even

236 A PSYCHICAL PRANK

himself. But he could change. He could
at least try to be worthy of thinking about
her, and he knew of no other man who
could. He'd like to catch any one else
doing so little as mentioning her name !

" Impertinent, grovelling mortals !" he re-
peated.

And then the car stopped at Seventeenth
Street, and who should step on board but
Miss Hollister herself!

" The idea !" thought Willis. " By Jove \
there she is — on a horse-car, too! How
atrocious ! One might as well expect to see
Minerva driving in a grocer's wagon as*
Miss Hollister in a horse-car. Miserable,
untactful world to compel Minerva to ride
in a horse-cart, or rather Miss Hollister to
ride in a grocer's car ! Absurdest of ab-
surdities !"

Here he raised his hat, for Miss Hollister
had bowed sweetly to him as she passed on
to the far end of the car, where she stood
hanging on to a strap.

" I wonder why she doesn't sit down ?"
thought Willis ; for as he looked about the
car he observed that with the exception of

A PSYCHICAL PRANK 237

the one he occupied all the seats were va-
cant. In fact, the only persons on board
were Miss Hollister, the driver, the con-
ductor, and himself.

" I think I'll go speak to her," he thought.
And then he thought again : " No, Vd bet-
ter not. She saw me when she entered,
and if she had wished- to speak to me she
would have sat down here beside me, or
opposite me perhaps. I shall show myself
worthy of her by not thrusting my presence
upon her. But I wonder why she stands ?
She looks tired enough."

Here Miss Hollister indulged in a very
singular performance. She bowed her head
slightly at some one, apparently on the side-
walk, Willis thought, murmured something,
the purport of which Willis could not catch,
and sat down in the middle of the seat on
the other side of the car, looking very much
annoyed — in fact, almost unamiable.

Willis was more mystified than ever ; but
his mystification was as nothing compared to
his anxiety when, on reaching Forty-second
Street, Miss Hollister rose, and sweeping by
him without a sign of recognition, left the car.

238 A PSYCHICAL PRANK

" Cut, by thunder !" ejaculated Willis, in
consternation. " And why, I wonder ? Most
incomprehensible affair. Can she be a
woman of whims — with eyes like those?
Never. Impossible. And yet what else
can be the matter ?"

Try as he might, Willis could not solve
the problem. It was utterly past solution
as far as he was concerned.

" I'll find out, and I'll find out like a
brave man," he said, after racking his brains
for an hour or two in a vain endeavor to
get at the cause of Miss Hollister's cut.
" ril call upon her to-night and ask her."

He was true to his first purpose, but not
to his second. He called, but he did not ask
her, for Miss Hollister did not give him the
chance to do so. Upon receiving his card
she sent down word that she was out. Two
days later, meeting him face to face upon
the street, she gazed coldly at him, and cut
him once more. Six months later her en-
gagement to a Boston man was announced,
and in the autumn following Miss Hollister
of New York became Mrs. Barrows of Bos-
ton. There were cards, but Willis did not

A PSYCHICAL PRANK 239

receive one of them. The cut was indeed
complete and final. But why ? That had
now become one of the great problems of
Willis's life. What had he done to be so
badly treated ?

A year passed by, and Willis recovered
from the dreadful blow to his hopes, but he
often puzzled over Miss Hollister's singular
behavior towards him. He had placed the
matter before several of his friends, and,
with the exception of one of them, none
was more capable of solving his problem
than he. This one had heard from his wife,
a school friend and intimate acquaintance of
Miss Hollister, now Mrs. Barrows, that Wil-
lis's ideal had once expressed herself to the
effect that she had admired Willis very much
until she had discovered that he was not
always as courteous as he should be.

" Courteous } Not as courteous as I
should be ?" retorted Willis. " When have
I ever been anything else ? Why, my dear
Bronson," he added, "you know what my

240 A PSYCHICAL PRANK

attitude towards womankind — as well as
mankind — has always been. If there is a
creature in the world whose politeness is
his weakness, I am that creature. I'm the
most courteous man living. When I play
poker in my own rooms I lose money, be-
cause I've made it a rule never to beat my
guests in cards or anything else."

"That isn't politeness," said Bronson.
" That's idiocy."

"It proves my point," retorted Willis.
" I'm polite to the verge of insanity. Not
as courteous as I should be ! Great Scott !
What did I ever do or say to give her that
idea ?"

" I don't know," Bronson replied. " Bet-
ter ask hen. Maybe you overdid your po-
liteness. Overdone courtesy is often worse
than boorish ness. You may have been so
polite oh some occasion that you made Miss
Hollister think you considered her an infe-
rior persort. You know what the poet insin-
uated. Sorosis holds no fury like a woman
condescended to by a mati."

" I've half a mirtd to write to Mrs. Bar-
rows and ask her what I did," said Willis.

A PSYCHICAL PRANK 241

"That would be lovely," said Bronson.
" Barrows would be pleased."

" True. I never thought of that," replied
Willis.

" You are not a thoughtful thinker," said
Bronson, dryly. "If I were you Vd bide
my time, and some day you may get an ex-
planation. Stranger things have happened ;
and my wife tells me that the Barrowses are
to spend the coming winter in New York.
You'll meet them out somewhere, no doubt."

"No; I shall decline to go where they
are. No woman shall cut me a second
time — not even Mrs. Barrows," said Wil-
lis, firmly.

" Good ! Stand by your colors," said
Bronson, with an amused smile.

A week or two later Willis received an
invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Bronson to
dine with them informally. " I have some
very clever friends I want you to meet," she
wrote. " So be sure to come."

Willis went. The clever friends were Mr.
and Mrs. Barrows ; and, to the surprise of
Willis, he was received most effusively by
the quondam Miss Hollister.

16 m

242 A PSYCHICAL PRANK

"Why, Mr. Willis," she said, extending
her hand to him. " How delightful to see
you again I"

"Thank you," said Willis, in some con-
fusion. "I — er — I am sure it is a very
pleasant surprise for me. I — er — had no
idea—"

" Nor I," returned Mrs. Barrows. " And
really I should have been a little embar-
rassed, I think, had I known you were to
be here. I — ha ! ha ! — it's so very absurd
that I almost hesitate to speak of it — but I
feel I must. I've treated you very badly."

" Indeed !" said Willis, with a smile.
" How, pray ?"

" Well, it wasn't my fault really," returned
Mrs. Barrows; "but do you remember, a
little over a year ago, my riding up-town on
a horse-car — a Madison Avenue car — with
you ?"

" H'm !" said Willis, with aji affectation of
reflection. " Let me see ; ah — yes — I think
I do. We were the only ones on board, I
believe, and— ah — "

Here Mrs. Barrows laughed outright.
"You thought we were the only ones on

A PSYCHICAL PRANK 243

board, but — we weren't. The car was crowd-
ed," she said.

" Then I don't remember it," said Willis.
"The only time I ever rode on a horse-car
with you to my knowledge was — "

" I know ; this was the occasion," inter-
rupted Mrs. Barrows. "You sat in a cor-
ner at the rear end of the car when I entered,
and I was very much put out with you be-
cause it remained for a stranger, whom I
had often seen and to whom I had, for rea-
sons uuknown even to myself, taken a deep
aversion, to offer me his seat, and, what is
more, compel me to take it."

" I don't understand," said Willis. " We
were alone on the car."

"To your eyes we were, although at the
time I did not know it. To my eyes when
I boarded it the car was occupied by enough
people to fill all the seats. You returned
my bow as I entered, but did not offer me
your seat. . The stranger did, and while I
tried to decline it, I was unable to do so.
He was a man of about my own age, and
he had a most remarkable pair of eyes.
There was no resisting them. His offer

244 ^ PSYCHICAL PRANK

was a command ; and as I rcMie along and
thought of your sitting motionless at the
end of the car, compelling me to stand, and
being indirectly responsible for my accept-
ance of courtesies from a total and disagree-
able stranger, I became so very indignant
with you that I passed you without recog-
nition as soon as I could summon up cour-
age to leave. I could not understand why
you, who had seemed to me to be the soul
of politeness, should upon this occasion
have failed to do not what I should exact
from any man, but what I had reason to ex-
pect of you."

" But, Mrs. Barrows," remonstrated Wil-
lis, ^^ why should I give up a seat to a lady
when there were twenty other seats unoccu-
pied on the same car?"

" There is no reason in the world why you
should," replied Mrs. Barrows. " But it was
not until last winter that I discovered the
trick that had been put upon us."

"Ah?" said Willis. "Trick?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Barrows. "It was a
trick. The car was empty to your eyes,
but crowded to mine with the astral bodies

A PSYCHICAL PRANK 245

of the members of the Boston Theosoph-
ical Society."

" Wha-a-at ?" roared Willis.

" It is just as I have said," replied Mrs.
Barrows, with a silvery laugh. "They are
all great friends of my husband's, and one
night last winter he dined them at our
house, and who do you suppose walked in
first ?"

" Madame Blavatsky's ghost ?" suggested
Willis, with a grin.

"Not quite," returned Mr^. Barrows.
"But the horrible stranger of the horse-
car; and, do you know, he recalled the
whole thing to my mind, assuring me that
he and the others had projected their astral
bodies over, to New York for a week, and
had a magnificent time unperceived by all
save myself, who was unconsciously psychic,
and so able to perceive them in their invisi-
ble forms."

" It was a mean trick on me, Mrs. Bar-
rows," said Willis, ruefully, as soon as he
had recovered sufficiently from his surprise
to speak.

"Oh no," she replied, with a repetition

246 A PSYCHICAL PRANK

of her charming laugh, which rearoused in
Willis's breast all the regrets of a lost cause.
"They didn't intend it especially for you,
anyhow."

"Well," said Willis, "I think they did.
They were friends of your husband's, and
they wanted to ruin me."

" Ruin you ? And why should the friends
of Mr. Barrows have wished to do that?"
asked Mrs. Barrows, in astonishment.

" Because," began Willis, slowly and soft-
ly — " because they probably knew that from
the moment I met you, I — But that is a
story with a disagreeable climax, Mrs. Bar-
rows, so I shall not tell it. How do you
like Boston ?"

THE LITERARY REMAINS OF
THOMAS BRAGDON

I WAS much pained one morning last win-
ter on picking up a copy of the Times to
note therein the announcement of the death
of my friend Tom Bragdon, from a sudden
attack of la grippe. The news stunned me.
It was like a clap of thunder out of a clear
sky, for I had not even heard that Tom was
ill ; indeed, we had parted not more than
four days previously after a luncheon to-
gether, at which it was I who was the object
of his sympathy because a severe cold pre-
vented my enjoyment of the whitebait, the
fillet, the cigar, and indeed of everything,
not even excepting Bragdon's conversation,
which upon that occasion should have
seemed more than usually enlivening, since
he was in one of his most exuberant moods.
His last words to me were, "Take care of

248 THE LITERARY REMAINS

yourself, Phil ! I should hate to have you
die, for force of habit is so strong with me
that I shall forever continue to lunch with
none but you, ordering two portions of
everything, which I am sure I could not
eat, and how wasteful that would be !" And
now he had passed over the threshold into
the valley, and I was left to mourn.

I had known Bragdon as a successful
•commission merchant for some ten or fif-
teen years, during which period of time we
had been more or less intimate, particularly
so in the last five years of his life, when we
were drawn more closely together; I, at-
tracted by the absolute genuineness of his
character, his delightful fancy, and to my
mind wonderful originality, for I never knew
another like him; he, possibly by the fact
that I was one of the very few who could
entirely understand him, could sympathize
with his peculiarities, which were many, and
was always ready to enter into any one of
his odd moods, and with quite as much
spirit as he himself should display. It was
an ideal friendship. \

It had been our custom every summer to

>
r
r

w
w

O
O

••• •••

••• •

• *

* •

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 25 1

take what Bragdon called spirit trips to-
gether — that is to say, generally in the
early spring, Bragdon and I would choose
some out-of-the-way corner of the world for
exploration ; we would each read all the lit-
erature that we could find concerning the
chosen locality, saturate our minds with the
spirit, atmosphere, and history of the place,
and then in August, boarding a small
schooner-rigged boat belonging to Bragdon,
we would cruise about the Long Island
Sound or sail up and down the Hudson
River for a week, where, tabooing all other
subjects, we would tell each other all that
we had been able to discover concerning the
place we had decided upon for our imagi-
nary visit. In this way we became tolerably
familiar with several places of interest which
neither of us had ever visited, and which, in
my case, financial limitations, and in Brag-
don^s, lack of time, were likely always to
prevent our seeing. As I remember the
matter, this plan was Bragdon^s own, and
its first suggestion by him was received by
me with a smile of derision ; but the quaint-
ness of the idea in time won me over, and

252 THE LITERARY REMAINS

after the first trial, when we made a spirit
trip to Beloochistan, I was so fascinated by
my experience that I eagerly looked forward
to a second in the series, and was always
thereafter only too glad to bear my share of
the trouble and expense of our annual jour-
neyings. In this manner we had practically
circumnavigated this world and one or two
of the planets ; for, content as we were to
visit unseen countries in spirit only, we were
never hampered by the ordinary limitations
of travel, and where books failed to supply
us with information the imagination was
called into play. The universe was open
to us at the expense of a captain for our
sharpie, canned provisions for a week, and a
moderate consumption of gray matter in the
conjuring up of scenes with which neither
ourselves nor others were familiar. The
trips were refreshing always, and in the case
of our spirit journey through Italy, which at
that time neither of us had visited, but which
I have since had the good- fortune to see in
the fulness of her beauty, I found it to be
far more delightful than the reality.

"We'll go in," said Bragdon, when he

vt^iit.

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 255

proposed the Italian tour, " by the St. Goth-
ard route, the description of which I will
prepare in detail myself. You can take the
lakes, rounding up with Como. I will fol-
low with the trip from Como to Milan, and
Milan shall be my care. You can flo Ve-
rona and Padua ; I Venice. Then we can
both try our hands at Rome and Naples ;
in the latter place, to save time, I will take
Pompeii, you Capri. Thence we can hark
back to Rome, thence to Pisa, Genoa, and
Turin, giving a day to Siena and some of the
quaint Etruscan towns, passing out by the
Mont Cenis route from Turin to Geneva.
If you choose you can take a run along the
Riviera and visit Monte Carlo. For my
own part, though, Td prefer not to do that,
because it brings a sensational element into
the trip which I don't particularly care for.
You'd have to gamble, and if your imagina-
tion is to have full play you ought to lose
all your money, contemplate suicide, and all
that. I don't think the results would be
worth the mental strain you'd have to go
through, and I certainly should not enjoy
hearing about it. The rest of the trip,

256 THE LITERARY REMAINS

though, we can do easily in five days, which
will leave us two for fishing, if we feel so
disposed. They say the blue-iish are bit-
ing like the devil this year."

I regret now that we did not include a
stenographer among the necessaries of our
spirit trips, for, as I look back upon that
Italian tour, it was well worthy of preserva-
tion in book form, particularly Bragdon's
contributions, which were so delightfully
imaginative that I cannot but rejoice that
he did not live to visit the scenes of which
he so eloquently spoke to me upon that
occasion. The reality, I fear, would have
been a sore disappointment to him, partic-
ularly in relation to Venice, concerning
which his notions were vaguely suggestive
of an earthly floating paradise.

" Ah, Philip," he said, as we cast anchor
one night in a little inlet near Milford, Con-
necticut, " I shall never forget Venice.
This," he added, waving his hand over the
silvery surface of the moonlit water — " this
reminds me of it. All is so still, so roman-
tic, so beautiful. I arrived late at night,
and my first sensations were those of a man

B BEAUTIFUL THAN THE REALITY"

•: :*

*** .*,

•

*
to

:■':

•
•

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 259

who has entered a city of the dead. The
bustle, the noise and clatter, of a great city
were absent; nothing was there but the
massive buildings rising up out of the still,
peaceful waters like gigantic tombs, and as
my gondolier guided the sombre black craft
to which I had confided my safety and that
of my valise, gliding in and out along those
dark unlit streams, a great wave of melan-
choly swept over me, and then, passing from
the minor streets into the Grand Canal, the
melancholy was dispelled by the brilliant
scene that met my eyes — great floods of
light coming from everywhere, the brilliance
of each ray re-enforced by its reflection in
the silent river over which I was speeding.
It was like a glimpse of paradise, and when
I reached my palace I was loath to leave
the gondola, for I really felt as though I
could glide along in that way through all
eternity."

" You lived in a palace in Venice ?" I
asked, somewhat amused at the magnifi-
cence of this imaginary tour.

" Certainly. Why not ?" he replied. " I
could not bring myself to staying in a hotel,

26o THE LITERARY REMAINS

Phil, in Venice. Venice is of a past age,
when hotels were not, and to be thoroughly
en rapport with my surroundings, I took up
my abode in a palace, as I have said. It
was on one of the side streets, to be sure,
but it was yet a palace, and a beautiful one.
And that street ! It was a rivulet of beauty,
in which could be seen myriads of golden-
hued fish at play, which as the gondola
passed to and fro would flirt into hiding
until the intruder had passed out of sight
in the Grand Canal, after which they would
come slowly back again to render the silver
waters almost golden with their brilliance."

" Weren't you rather extravagant, Tom ?"
I asked. " Palaces are costly, are they not ?"

" Oh no," he replied, with as much grav-
ity as though he had really taken the trip
and was imparting information to a seeker
after knowledge. " It was not extravagant
when you consider that anything in Venice
in the way of a habitable house is called a
palace, and that there are no servants to be
tipped; that your lights, candles all, cost
you first price only, and not the profit of
the landlord, plus that of the concierge, plus

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 26 I

that of the maid, plus several other small
but aggravatingly augmentative sums which
make your hotel bills seem like highway
robbery. No, living in a palace, on the
whole, is cheaper than living in a hotel ; in-
cidentals are less numerous and not so cost-
ly ; and then you are so independent. Mine
was a particularly handsome structure. I
believe I have a picture of it here."

Here Bragdon fumbled in his satchel for
a moment, and then dragged forth a small
unmounted photograph of a Venetian street
scene, and, pointing out an ornate structure
at the left of the picture, assured me that
that was his palace, though he had forgot-
ten the name of it.

" By-the-way," he said, " let me say par-
enthetically that I think our foreign trips
will have a far greater vraisemblance if we
heighten the illusion with a few photographs,
don't you ? They cost about a quarter
apiece at Blank's, in Twenty-third Street."

"A good idea that," I answered, amused at
the thoroughness with which Bragdon was
"doing" Venice. "We can remember what
we haven't seen so very much more easily."

262 THE LITERARY REMAINS

" Yes," Bragdon said, " and besides, they'll
keep us from exaggeration."

And then he went on to tell me of his
month in Venice ; how he chartered a gon-
dola for the whole of his stay there from a
handsome romantic Venetian youth, whose
name was on a card Tom had had printed
for the occasion, reading :

GIUSEPPE ZOCCO

Gondolas at all Hours

Cor. Grand Canal and Garibaldi St.

"Giuseppe was a character," Bragdon
said. " One of the remnants of a by-gone
age. He could sing like a bird, and at night
he used to bring his friends around to the
front of my palace and hitch up to one of
the piles that were driven beside my door-
step, and there they'd sing their soft Italian
melodies for me by the hour. It was better
than Italian opera, and only cost me ten
dollars for the whole season."

"And did this Giuseppe speak English,

* *

• * ••

« * h

♦ "..

• • '

•• *

• »

•

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 265

Tom ?" I queried, "or did you speak Italian ?
J am curious to know how you got on to-
gether in a conversational sense."

" That is a point, my dear Phil," Bragdon
replied, " that I have never decided. I have
looked at it from every point of view, and it
has baffled me. I have asked myself the
question, which would be the more likely,
that Giuseppe should speak English, or that
I should speak Italian ? It has seemed to
me that the latter would be the better way,
for, all things considered, an American prod-
uce-broker is more likely to be familiar
with the Italian tongue than a Venetian gon-
dola-driver with the English. On the other
hand, we want our accounts of these trips
to seem truthful, and you know that I am
not familiar with Italian, and we do not
either of us know that a possible Zocco
would not be a fluent speaker of English.
To be honest with you, I* will say that I
had hoped you would not ask the ques-
tion."

"Well," I answered, **I'll withdraw it.
As this is only a spirit trip we can each de-
cide the point as it seems best to us."

266 THE LITERARY REMAINS

" I think that is the proper plan," he said,
and then, proceeding with his story, he de-
scribed to me the marvellous paintings that
adorned the walls of his palace; how he
had tried to propel a gondola himself, and
got a fall into the " deliciously tepid waters
of the canal," as he called them, for his
pains; and it seemed very real, so minute
were the details into which he entered.

But the height of Bragdon's realism in
telling his story of Venice was reached when,
diving down into the innermost recesses of
his vest pocket, he brought forth a silver
filigree effigy of a gondola, which he handed
me with the statement that it was for me.

" I got that in the plaza of St. Marc's.
I had visited the cathedral, inspected the
mosaic flooring, taken a run to the top of
the campanile, fed the pigeons, and was
just about returning to the palace, when I
thought of you, Phil, getting ready to do
Rome with me, and I thought to myself
' what a dear fellow he is !' and, as I thought
that, it occurred to me that I'd like you to
know I had you in mind at the time, and so
I stopped in one of those brilliant little

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 267

shops on the plaza, where they keep every-
thing they have in the windows, and bought
that. It isn't much, old fellow, but it's for
remembrance' sake."

I took it from him and pressed his hand
affectionately, and for a moment, as the lit-
tle sharpie rose and fell with the rising and
falling of the slight undulating waves made
by the passing up to anchorage of a small
steam-tug, I almost believed that Tom had
been to Venice. I still treasure the little
filigree gondola, nor did I, when some years
later I visited Venice, see there anything for
which I would have exchanged that sweet
tokeg of remembrance.

Bragdon, as will already have been sur-
mised by you who read, was more of a hu-
morist than anything else, but the enthusi-
asm of his humor, its absolute spontaneity
and kindliness, gave it at times a semblance
to what might pass for true poetry. He was
by disposition a thoroughly sweet spirit,
and when I realized that he had gone be-
fore, and that the trips he and I had looked
forward to with such almost boyish delight
year by year were never more to be had,

268 THE LITERARY REMAINS

my eyes grew wet, and for a time I was dis-
consolate; and yet one week later I was
laughing heartily at Bragdon.

He had appointed me, it was found when
his will was read, his literary executor. I
fairly roared with mirth to think of Brag-
don^s having a literary executor, for, imagi-
native and humorous as he undoubtedly
was, he had been so thoroughly identified
in my mind with the produce business that
I could scarcely bring myself to think of
him in the light of a literary person. In-
deed, he had always seemed to me to have
an intolerance of literature. I had taken
but half of a spirit trip with him when I dis-
covered that he relied more upon his own
imagination for facts of interest than upon
what could be derived from books. He
showed this trait no more strongly than
when we came, upon this same Italian tour
of which I have already written at some
length, to do Rome together, for I then dis-
covered how imaginary indeed the trips
were from his point of view. What seemed
to him as proper to be was, and neither his-
tory nor considerations of locality ever inter-

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 269

fered with the things being as he desired
them to be. Had it been otherwise he never
would have endeavored to make me believe
that he had stood upon the very spot in the
Colosseum where Caesar addressed the Ro-
man mob in impassioned words, exhorting
them to resist the encroachment upon their
liberties of the Pope !

At first it seemed to me that my late friend
was indulging in a posthumous joke, and I
paid his memory the compliment of seeing
the point. But when, some days later, I
received a note from his executors stating
that they had found in the store-room of
Bragdon's house a large' packing-box full of
papers and books, upon the cover of which
was tacked a card bearing my address, I
began to wonder whether or not, after all,
the imagination of my dead friend had real-
ly led him to believe that he possessed liter-
ary ability.

I immediately sent word to the executors
to have the box forwarded to me by express,
and awaited its coming with rio little inter-
est, and, it must be confessed, with some
anxiety; for I am apt to-be depressed by

270* THE LITERARY REMAINS

the literary lucubrations of those of my
friends who, devoid of the literary quality,
do yet persist in writing, and for as long a
time as I had known Bragdon I had never
experienced through him any sensations
save those of exhilaration, and I greatly
feared a posthumous breaking of the spell.
Poet in feeling as I thought him, I could
hardly imagine a poem written by my friend,
and while I had little doubt that I could
live through the jeading of a novel or short
prose sketch from his pen, I was apprehen-
sive as to the effect of a possible bit of
verse.

It seemed to me, in short, that a poem by
Bragdon, while it might easily show the
poet's fancy, could not fail to show also the
produce-broker's clumsiness of touch. His
charm was the spontaneity of his spoken
words, his enthusiastic personality disarm-
ing all criticism ; what the labored produc-
tions of his fancy might prove to be, I hardly
dared think. It was this dread that induced
me, upon receipt of the box, appalling in its
bulk and unpleasantly suggestive of the de-
parture to other worlds of the original con-

• • • ^»

• *

- -^"^^

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 273

signer, since it was long and deep like the
outer oaken covering of a casket, to delay
opening it for some days; but finally I
nerved myself up to the duty that had de-
volved upon me, and opened the box.

It was full to overflowing with printed
books in fine bindings, short tales in Brag-
don's familiar hand in copy-books, man-
uscripts almost without number, three
Russia - leather record -books containing,
the title-page told me, that which I most
dreaded to find. The Poems of Thomas Brag-
doriy and dedicated to " His Dearest Friend "
— myself. I had no heart to read beyond
the dedication that night, but devoted all
my time to getting the contents of the box
into my library, having done which I felt it
absolutely essential to my happiness to put
on my coat, and, though the night was
stormy, to rush out into the air. I think I
should have suffocated in an open field with
those literary remains of Thomas Bragdon
heaped about me that night.

On my return I went immediately to bed,
feeling by no means in the mood to read

The Poems of Thomas Bragdon, I tossed

274 THE LITERARY REMAINS

about through the night, sleeping little,
and in the morning rose up unrefreshed,
and set about the examination of the papers
and books intrusted to my care by my de-
parted friend. And oh, the stuff I found
there ! If I was depressed at starting in, I
was stupefied when it was all over, for the
collection was mystifying to the point that
it stunned.

In the first place, on opening Volume I.
of the Poems of Thomas Bragdon, the first
thing to greet my eyes were these lines :

CONSTANCY

Often have I heard it said

That her lips are ruby-red :

Little heed I what they say,

I have seen as red as they.

Ere she smiled on other men,

Real rubies were they then.

But now her lips are coy and cold ;

To mine they ne'er reply ;
And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye :
Her very frowns are fairer far
Than smiles of other maidens are.

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 275

As I read I was conscious of having seen
the lines somewhere before, and yet I could
not place them for the moment. They cer-
tainly possessed merit, so much so, in fact,
that I marvelled to think of their being
Bragdon's. I turned the leaves further and
discovered this :

DISAPPOINTMENT

Come to me, O ye children,
li^or I hear you at your play,

And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.

The Poem of the Universe

Nor rhythm has nor rhyme;
Some God recites the wondrous song,

A stanza at a time.

I dwell not now on what may be;

Night shadows o'er the scene;
But still my fancy wanders free

Through that which might have been.

Two stanzas in the poem, the first and
the last, reminded me, as did the lines on
" Constancy," of something I had read be-

276

THE LITERARY REMAINS

fore. In a moment I had placed the first as
the opening lines of Longfellow's " Chil-
dren," and a search through my books
showed that the concluding verse was taken
bodily from Peacock's exquisite little poem
" Castles in the Air."

Despairing to solve the problem that now
confronted me, which was, in brief, what
Bragdon meant by bodily lifting stanzas
from the poets and making them over into
mosaics of his own, I turned from the
poems and cast my eyes over some of the
bound volumes in the box.

The first of these to come to hand was a
copy of Hamlet^ bound in tree calf, the sole
lettering on the book being on the back, as
follows :

H A M LE T

00000000

Bragdon
New York

OF THOMAS BRAGDON

277

This I deemed a harmless bit of vanity,
and not necessarily misleading, since many
collectors of books see fit to have their own
names emblazoned on the backs of their
literary treasures ; but pray imagine my hor-
ror upon opening the volume to discover
that the name of William Shakespeare had
been erased from the title-page, and that of
Thomas Bragdon so carefully inserted that
except to a practised eye none would ever
know that the page was not as it had always
been. I must confess to some mirth when
I read that title-page :

HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

^ (STrafletii?

Thomas Bragdon, Esquire

The conceit was well worthy of my late
friend in one of his most fanciful moods.
In other volumes the same substitution had

278 THE LITERARY REMAINS

been made, so that to one not versed in lit-
erature it would have seemed as though
" Thomas Bragdon, Enquire," had been the
author not only of Hamlet^ but also of Van-
ity Fair^ David Copperfield^ Rienzi, and many-
other famous works, and I am not sure but
that the great problem concerning the "Ju-
nius Letters" was here solved to the satis-
faction of Bragdon, if not to my own. There
were but two exceptions in the box to the
rule of substituting the name of Bragdon
for that of the actual author ; one of these
was an Old Testament, on the fly-leaf of
which Bragdon had written, "To my dear
friend Bragdon," and signed " The Author."
I think I should have laughed for hours
over this delightful reminder of my late
friend's power of imagination had not the
second exception come almost immediately
to hand — a copy of Milton, which I recog-
nized at once as one I had sent Tom at
Christmas two years before his death, and
on the fly-leaf of which I had written, " To
Thomas Bragdon, with the love of, his faith-
fully, Philip Marsden." This was, indeed,
a commonplace enough inscription, but it

)

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 279

gathered unexpected force when I turned
over a leaf and my eyes rested on the title,
where Bragdon's love of substitutes had led
him to put my name where Milton's had
been.

The discovery was too much for my equa-
nimity. I was thoroughly disconcerted, al-
most angry, and I felt, for the first time in
my life, that there had been vagaries in
Bragdon's character with which I could not
entirely sympathize ; but in justice to my-
self, it must be said, these sentiments were
induced by first thoughts only. Certainly
there could be but one way in which Brag-
don's substitution of my name for Milton's
could prove injurious or offensive to me
who was his friend, and that was by his put-
ting that copy out before the world to be
circulated at random, which avenue to my
discomfiture he had effectually closed by
leaving the book in my hands, to do with
it whatsoever I pleased. Second thoughts
showed me that it was only a fear of what
the outsider might think that was responsi-
ble for my temporary disloyalty to my de-
parted comrade's memory, and then when I

28o THE LITERARY REMAINS

remembered how thoroughly we twain had
despised the outsider, I was so ashamed of
my aberration that 1 immediately renewed
my allegiance to the late King Tom ; so
heartily, in fact, that my emotions wellnigh
overcame me, and I found it best to seek
distractions in the outer world.

I put on my hat and took a long walk
along the Riverside Drive, the crisp air of
the winter night proving a tonic to my dis-
turbed system. It was after midnight when
I returned to my apartment in a tolerably
comfortable frame of mind, and yet as I
opened the door to my study I was filled
with a vague apprehension — of what I could
not determine, but which events soon justi-
fied, for as I closed the. door behind me,
and turned up the light over my table, I be-
came conscious of a pair of eyes fixed upon
me. Nervously whirling about in my chair
and glancing over towards my fireplace, I
was for a moment transfixed with terror, for
there, leaning against the mantel and gazing
sadly into the fire, was Tom Bragdon him-
self — the man whom but a short time before
I had seen lowered into his grave.

' *1

» •,

• • •

•:

•-.•

• •

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 283

" Tom," I cried, springing to my feet and
rushing towards him — "Tom, what does
this mean*? Why have you come back from
the spirit world to — to haunt me ?"

As I spoke he raised his head slowly until
his eyes rested full upon my own, where-
upon he vanished, all save those eyes, which
remained fixed upon mine, and filled with
the soft, affectionate glow I had so often
seen in them in life.

"Tom," I cried again, holding out my
hand towards him in a beseeching fashion,
"come back. Explain this dreadful mys-
tery if you do not wish me to lose my
senses."

And then the eyes faded from my sight,
and I was alone again. Horrified by my
experience, I rushed from the study into my
bedroom, where I threw myself, groaning,
upon my couch. To collect my scattered
senses was of difficult performance, and
when finally my agitated nerves did begin
to assume a moderately normal state, they
were set adrift once more by Tom's voice,
which was unmistakably plain, bidding me
to come back to him there in the study.

284 THE LITERARY REMAINS

Fearful as I was of the results, I could not
but obey, and I rose tremblingly from my
bed and tottered back to my desk, to see
Bragdon sitting opposite my usual place
just as he had so often done when in the
flesh.

" Phil," he said in a moment, " don't be
afraid. I couldn't hurt you if I would, and
you know — or if you don't know you ought
to know — that to promote your welfare has
always been the supremest of my desires.
I have returned to you here to-night to ex-
plain my motive in making the alterations
in those books, and to account for the pe-
culiarities of those verses. We have known
each other, my dear boy, how many years ?"

" Fifteen, Tom,'' I said, my voice husky
with emotion.

"Yes, fifteen years, and fifteen happy
years, Phil. Happy years to me, to whom
the friendship of one who understood me
• was the dearest of many dear possessions.
From the moment I met you I felt I had at
last a friend, one to whom my very self
might be confided, and who would through
all time and under all circumstances prove

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 285

true to that trust. It seemed to me that
you were my soul's twin, Phil, and as the
years passed on and we grew closer to each
other, when the rough corners of my nature
adapted themselves to the curves of yours,
I almost began to think that we were but
one soul united in all things spiritual, two
only in matters material. I never spoke of
it to you; I thought of it in communion
with myself ; I never thought it necessary to
speak of it to you, for I was satisfied that
you knew. I did not realize until — until
that night a fortnight since, when almost
without warning I found myself on the
threshold of the dark valley, that perhaps I
was mistaken. I missed you, and so sudden
was the attack, and so swiftly did the her-
alds of death intrude upon me, that I had
no time to summon you, as I wished ; and
as I lay there upon my bed, to the watchers
unconscious, it came to me, like a dash of
cold water in my face, that after all we
were not one, but in reality two ; for had
we been one, you would have known of the
perilous estate of your other self, and would
have been with me at the last. And, Phil,

286 THE LITERARY REMAINS

the realization that chilled my very soul,
that showed me that what I most dearly
loved to believe was founded in unreality,
reconciled me to the journey I was about to
take into other worlds, for I knew that
should I recover, life could never seem quite
the same to me."

Here Bragdon, or his spirit, stopped speak-
ing for a moment, and I tried to say some-
thing, but could not.

" I know how you feel, Phil," said he, no-
ticing my discomfiture, " for, though you are
not so much a part of me that you thorough-
ly comprehend me, I have become so much
a part of you that your innermost thoughts
are as plain to me as though they were mine.
But let me finish. I realized when I lay ill
and about to die that I had permitted my
theory of happiness to obscure my percep-
tion of the actual. As you know, my whole
life has been given over to imagination — all
save that portion of my existence, which I
shall not dignify by calling life, when I was
forced by circumstances to bring myself
down to realities. I did not live whilst in
commercial pursuits. It was only when I

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 287

could leave business behind and travel in
fancy wheresoever I wished that I was hap-
py, and in those moments, Phil, I was full of
aspiration to do those things for Ayhich nat-
ure had not fitted me, and to the extent
that I recognized my inability to do those
things I failed to be content. I should have
liked to be a great writer, a poet, a great
dramatist, a novelist — a little of everything
in the literary world. I should have liked
to know Shakespeare, to have been the
friend of Milton ; and when I came out of
my dreams it made me unhappy to think
that such I never could be, until one day
this idea came to me : all the happiness of
life is bound up in the * let's pretend ' games
which we learn in childhood, and no harm
results to any one. If I can imagine myself
off with my friend Phil Marsden in the lakes
of England and Scotland, in the African jun-
gle, in the moon, anywhere, and enter so far
into the spirit of the trips as to feel that
they are real and not imagination, why may
I not in fancy be all these things that I so
aspire to be? Why may not the plays of
Shakespeare become the plays of Thomas

288 THE LITERARY REMAINS

Bragdon ? Why may not the poems of Mil-
ton become the poems of my dearest, closest
friend Phil Marsden ? What is to prevent
my achieving the highest position in letters,
art, politics, science, anything, in imagina-
tion ? I acted upon the thought, and I
found the plan worked admirably up to a
certain point. It was easy to fancy myself
the author of Hamlet until I took my copy
of that work in hand to read, and then it
would shock and bring me back to earth
again to see the name of another on the
title-page. My solution of this vexatious
complication was soon found. Surely,
thought I, it can harm no one if I choose
in behalf of my own conceit to substitute
my name for that of Shakespeare, and I did
so. The illusion was complete; indeed, it
became no illusion, for my eyes did not de-
ceive me. I saw what existed : the title-
page of Hamlet by Thomas Bragdon. I
carried the plan further, and where I found
a piece of literature that I admired, there I
made the substitution of my name for that
of the real author, and in the case of that
delightful copy of Milton you gave me, Phil,

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 289

it pleased me to believe that it was present-
ed to me by the author, only the inscription
on the title-page made it necessary for me
to foist upon you the burden or distinction
of authorship. Then, as I lived on in my
imaginary paradise, it struck me that for one
who had done such great things in letters I
was doing precious little writing, and I be-
thought me of a plan which a dreadful re-
ality made all the more pleasing. I looked
into literature to a slight extept, and I per-
ceived at once that originality is no longer
possible. The great thoughts have been
thought ; the great truths have been grasped
and made clear ; the great poems have been
written. I saw that the literature of to-day is
either an echo of the past or a combination
of the ideas of many in the productions of
the individual, and upon that basis I worked.
My poems are combinations. I have taken
a stanza from one poet, and combining it
with a stanza from another, have made the
resulting poem my own, and in so far as I
have made no effort to profit thereby I have
been clear in my conscience. No one has
been deceived but myself, though I saw with
19

290 THE LITERARY REMAINS

some regret this evening when you read my
lines that you were puzzled by them. I had
believed that you understood me sufficiently
to comprehend them."

Here my ghostly visitor paused a moment
and sighed. I felt as though some explana-
tion of my lack of comprehension early in
the evening was necessary, and so I said :

"I should have understood you, Tom, and
I do now, but I have not the strength of im-
agination that you have."

" You are wrong there, Phil," said he.
" You have every bit as strong an imagina-
tion as I, but you do not keep it in form.
You do not exercise it enough . How have
you developed your muscles ? By constant
exercise. The imagination needs to be kept
in play quite as much as the muscles, if we
do not wish it to become flabby as the mus-
cles become when neglected. That your
imagination is a strong one is shown by my
presence before you to-night. In reality,
Phil, I am lying out there in Greenwood,
cold in my grave. Your imagination places
me here, and as applied to my books, the
play of Hamlet by Thomas Bragdon, and

OF THOMAS BRAGDON '29 1

my poems, they will also demonstrate to you
the strength of your fancy if you will show
them, say, to your janitor, to-morrow morn-
ing. Try it, Phil, and see ; but this is only
a part, my boy, of what I have come here to
say to you. I am here, in the main, to show
you that throughout all eternity happiness
may be ours if we but take advantage of our
fancy. Do you take delight in my society.?
Imagine me present, Phil, and I will be
present. There need be no death for us,
there need be no separation throughout all
the years to come, if you but exercise your
fancy in life, and when life on this earth
ends, then shall we be reunited according
to nature's laws. Good-night, Phil. It is
late ; and while I could sit here and talk
forever without weariness, you, who have
yet to put off your mortal limitations, will
be worn out if I remain longer."

We shook hands affectionately, and Brag-
don vanished as unceremoniously as he had
appeared. For an hour after his departure
I sat reflecting over the strange events of
the evening, and finally, worn out in body
and mind, dropped off into sleep. When I

292 THE LITERARY REMAINS

awakened it was late in the forenoon, and I
was surprised when I recalled all that I had
gone through to feel a sense of exhilaration.
I was certainly thoroughly rested, and cares
which had weighed rather heavily on me in
the past now seemed light and inconsider-
able. My apartments never looked so at-
tractive, and on my table, to my utter sur-
prise and delight, I saw several objects of
art, notably a Barye bronze, that it had been
one of my most cherished hopes to possess.
Where they came from I singularly enough
did not care to discover; suffice it to say
that they have remained there ever since,
nor have I been at all curious to know to
whose generosity I owe them, though when
that afternoon I followed Bragdon's advice,
and showed his book of poems and the
volume of Hamlet to the janitor, a vague
notion as to how matters really stood en-
tered my mind. The janitor cast his eye
over the leather- covered book of poems
when I asked what he thought of it.

" Nothin' much," he said. " You goin' to
keep a diary ?"

" What do you mean ?" I asked.

/-.

OF THOMAS BRAGDON 295

" Why, when I sees people with handsome
blank-books like that I alius supposes that's
their object."

Blank-book indeed ! And yet, perhaps, he
was not wrong. I did not question it, but
handed him the Bragdon Hamlet,

" Read that page aloud to me," I said, in-
dicating the title-page and turning my back
upon him, almost dreading to hear him
speak.

" Certainly, if you wish it; but aren't you
feeling well this morning, Mr. Marsden .?"

" Very," I replied, shortly. " Go on and
read."

" Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," he read,
in a halting sort of fashion.

"• Yes, yes ; and what else ?" I cried, im-
patiently.

" A Tragedy by William Shak— "

That was enough for me. I understood
Tom, and at last I understood myself. I
grasped the book from the janitor's hands,
rather roughly, I fear, and bade him begone.

The happiest period of my life has elapsed
since then. I understand that some of mv

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